The local police in Bhubaneswar, the capital city of eastern India state of Odisha, have launched a detailed probe into an interesting case relating to two government files which have disappeared mysteriously from the secretariat, the state’s administrative headquarters. The matter should be investigated thoroughly and strong action must be taken against persons involved because the missing files were connected with two very important and sensitive incidents that had rocked the entire state in the past.

               One of the two files was related to report of the judicial commission that had probed into the 2008 brutal murder of Hindu religious leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati. The sensational killing had triggered an unprecedented Hindu-Christian riots in Kandhamal district which had lasted for months. The riots had claimed more than forty lives besides rendering thousands homeless. Sarasawati was killed while resting inside his Ashram in the western Odisha district where he was leading an anti-conversion movement.

                The one man judicial commission which had also probed the riots besides conducting an enquiry into the religious leader’s killing had subsequently submitted its report to the state government. That important official document has now gone missing.

               If sources are to be believed, after conducting its probe  the judicial commission had submitted its report to the government during the previous  BJD regime and the important document was parked in the office of the then chief minister Naveen Patnaik for a thorough ‘’examination’’.

              The second important government file that has disappeared under mysterious circumstances relates to a tragic fire incident that had taken place in 2016 in Sum Hospital, one of the leading privately run health facilities in capital city Bhubaneswar. The government had ordered a top administrative level inquiry into the incident. The local RDC(Revenue Divisional Commissioner) who conducted the probe had submitted his findings to that government subsequently.

              The disappearance of the two important probe reports has thrown up several unanswered questions. And one significant among them is why the previous government had sat over the reports for so long though they had been submitted years back. This has already led to intense speculations in different circles that somebody powerful in the previous government wanted to keep the reports under the carpet in order to shield some perpetrators whose names could have figured in the twin documents. ‘’The previous government should have made the report public long ago’’, said a Bhubaneswar based analyst.

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