Naveen responsible for naxalite attack in Nayagarh: Congress

Bhubaneswar, Feb 16 (UNI) Leader of the Opposition in Orissa Assembly J B Pattnaik today held the Naveen Patnaik government responsible for yesterday's naxalite attack in Nayagarh which claimed 14 lives, including 13 policemen.

Mr Pattnaik told newspersons here that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who was also in charge of the Home department, has no moral right to continue in power and should step down from the post owning moral responsibility.

The Congress leader said the incident that took place in Nayagarh yesterday was not the first such incident in the state as earlier also the armed naxalites attacked Koraput town and R Udayagiri in 2004 and 2006 respectively.

He said in Koraput, armed naxalites attacked six police stations and looted the district armory while in R Udayagiri, the left wing ultras attacked the sub-jail, freed the naxalite prisoners and looted arms from the police station.

This time the Naxalites attacked a place, which was only 90 kms away from the state capital, and almost seized the town for more than two hours attacking and ransacking the police stations and looting the arms and ammunition.

The Leader of Opposition said the state government should have taken adequate protection measures in the naxalite dominated areas following the recent arrest of Naxal leader Anna Reddy from Bhubaneswar, as there was every possibility that the left wing rebels would take revenge of his arrest.

The government,he said, should have kept a strict vigil on the movement of the naxalites after the incident and sealed the areas bordering Chhatisgarh and Andhra Pradesh to prevent any possible attack.

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