Odisha CM orders crime branch probe into missing Laxmanananda report

Bhubaneswar, July 27 (AHN) Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Monday ordered the Crime Branch of Odisha Police to take over the investigation into the alleged disappearance of the Justice A.S. Naidu Commission report on the murder of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and others from the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) during the previous Biju Janata Dal (BJD) regime.

The Chief Minister’s direction comes amid an ongoing investigation by the Commissionerate Police into the disappearance of the Naidu Commission report as well as the RDC inquiry report on the SUM Hospital fire incident in 2016.

Based on a written complaint lodged by a senior official of the Home Department, Capital Police Station in Bhubaneswar registered a case (No. 460/26) under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) on June 10, 2026. Earlier, the Commissionerate Police summoned four former bureaucrats, including V.K. Pandian, a close aide of BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik, to join the investigation into the missing reports.

The officials were asked to appear before the investigating officer on separate dates. Of them, only former IT Secretary Manoj Kumar Mishra has so far appeared and recorded his statement, while the remaining officials are yet to depose before the police.

Sources claimed that following the Chief Minister’s directive, the Crime Branch has initiated the process of registering a fresh case to take up the investigation into the disappearance of the Justice Naidu Commission report.

Notably, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his followers were killed in an armed attack at the Jaleshpata Ashram in Kandhamal’s Tumudibandh on August 23, 2008, during Janmashtami celebrations. The incident sparked widespread communal unrest in the district, which lasted for several weeks. The violence reportedly claimed 40 lives and left 4,821 houses and 229 religious structures damaged.

The state government subsequently appointed a judicial commission to investigate the incidents. The inquiry was initially headed by retired High Court judge Justice Sarat Chandra Mohapatra and, following his death in 2012, was taken over by retired Justice A.S. Naidu, who submitted the commission’s report to the government in December 2015. The report, however, has never been made public by the government.