What happened
In 2016 and 2018, two judicial inquiry commission reports were duly forwarded to Odisha's Chief Minister's Office for 'necessary action' — one probing the killing of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and others during the 2008 Kandhamal communal violence, another examining a deadly fire at SUM Hospital in Bhubaneswar. Both arrived. Neither was acted upon. In June 2024, when ballot counting ushered in a change of government and officials began returning files from the CMO, neither report came back with them. The current BJP government responded by filing FIR No. 460/2026 under sections including criminal breach of trust, conspiracy, and destruction of evidence. A three-member SIT has been formed. The state is now investigating what happened to the reports that were supposed to make the state do something — which, if they had been acted upon in 2016 or 2018, might have made this investigation unnecessary.