Tribals to receive relatives' chopped palms this week

Bhubaneswar: Relatives of five of the 12 tribals killed in the January 2 police firing at Kalinga Nagar in Orissa will receive the chopped palms of their loved ones on Tuesday.

The body parts will be cremated at a ceremony attended by hundreds of tribals from the state.

During the autopsy of the firing victims, the doctor had cut off the palms from five of the tribals' bodies as their identity could not be ascertained then.

However, the incident created a storm in and outside the state. The doctors, who had chopped off the palms, allegedly without permission from the district administration, were suspended.

Several social organisations and human rights activists also condemned the chopping of the palms dubbing it as "barbaric" and urged the intervention of the National Human Rights Commission.

The decision to return the chopped palms was announced during a recent meeting between the Kalinga Nagar-based organisation and a government delegation headed by chief minister Navin Patnaik.