Cong sends team to Dantewara to probe Naxalite violence

New Delhi, July 20 (UNI) The Congress high command is awaiting the report of the three-member committee despatched to tribal Dantewara district in Chhattisgarh to inquire into the killing of about 35 tribals by Naxalites in an attack on a relief camp near the district town early this week.

The Committee, consisting of Harikesh Bahadur, Urmila Singh and Ashok Rao, has been sent there by party president Sonia Gandhi, senior Congress leader and AICC Treasurer Moti Lal Vora said, adding the Committee members must have reached Dantewara by now.

Mr Vora told reporters that the Congress was morally supporting the Salva Judam (peace mission) started in Dantewara district against the Naxalites by Chhattisgarh CLP leader Mahendra Karma as Dantewara happened to be Mr Karma's native place. Ever since the mission started, it has developed into a people's movement.

The Congress leadership would decide the party's stand on the Naxalite problem in Chhattisgarh after the submission of the report by the Committee.

Meanwhile, a member of another Committee, which had gone to tribal Bastar district earlier to assess the gravity of the situation created by Naxalite violence, said the Salva Judum movement had failed to pick up as a people's movement provoking retaliation by Naxalites forcing the tribals to flee their homes and seek shelter in releif camps. The Congress leader, who did not want to be identified, said the tribals had confided in them that they had joined the movement because they were thereby assured of getting food in the relief camps run by the Government which too supported the Salva Judum movement.

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