BLOCK HOSPITAL
Baliguda
The hospital is crowded. On the floor lie injured youth from the neighbouring Barakhamba village. Group clashes and shooting in Barakhamba on August 27 left one dead and many injured.
“They surrounded our houses in the evening and started firing. They had sharp weapons and entered our houses. I tried to flee but they caught me and hit me with an axe on my thigh. I managed to escape and kept running till I fell into a ditch,” says 18-year-old Prasanta Digal.
Malini Digal, a class IX student of Barakhamba High School, was fortunate to have escaped the mob—and also to have found a bed in the hospital. “They surrounded my house and set it on fire. My family managed to escape but I was trapped,” she says feebly, as her father Namri Digal looks on.
We leave the hospital, but the despair of the injured stays with us.

A TEA STALL
near the Baliguda CRPF camp
Four men sit together, sipping tea at the only open tea stall in this area. They work as drivers with the CRPF convoy. “The other shops are closed due to curfew. Luckily for us, this one's open,” says one of them.
“The CRPF cannot enter the villages. There is no proper road. They have to walk for hours. By the time they get to the villages, the attackers would have left. This work is really hectic and I haven’t eaten since last night,” says another.
As we continue our journey, convoys of the CRPF pass by. In some areas, the CRPF and the Orissa Police conduct a flag march in local bazaars. The road to the ashram in Jalespeta stretches out before us. The beauty of the valley and the winding roads is unsettling, an unlikely backdrop to the burnt houses that stand all along the route.
The road takes a final turn before coming to the heavily guarded Kanya Ashram in Jalespeta. To the spot from where it all started: the murder of the Swami and the following cycle of revenge and hate.

... contd.