The Odisha government on Wednesday initiated a case concerning the missing inquiry reports related to the state’s most severe communal violence and the deaths of 24 patients in a fire at Bhubaneswar’s SUM Hospital during the final days of the Naveen Patnaik administration in 2024.

The case pertains to the Justice AS Naidu Commission and the Revenue Divisional Commissioner (Central) or RCD (Central) inquiry reports, filed under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections that address criminal breach of trust, concealment and destruction of documents, and criminal conspiracy against unidentified individuals.

Justice Naidu investigated the murder of Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his disciples by Maoists in August 2008 in Kandhamal, an incident that sparked Hindu-Christian riots resulting in 38 fatalities. Seven individuals have been convicted for their involvement in the riots. The RDC (Central) examined the fire in the Intensive Care Unit, dialysis, and emergency units at the SUM Hospital in October 2016.

Affiliates of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including the VHP and Bajrang Dal, have called for the release of the Naidu Commission report, which was submitted in December 2015.

“…the two reports were not returned from the CMO on June 4, 2024, and are presently untraceable. The circumstances surrounding the disappearance of these two reports, particularly when other files forwarded during the same period were returned, create a reasonable suspicion that the reports may have been intentionally removed, retained, concealed, destroyed, or otherwise unlawfully dealt with,” stated home department joint secretary Sarat Chandra Marandi in the First Information Report filed in the case.