18th October, 2026
The Medico Friend Circle (MFC) strongly condemns the arrest of Dr. Randall Sequeira and Shri Laxman Naik of the Maa Mati Mali Surakhya Manch. These arrests are in the context of the constitutionally legitimate struggle of the Adivasi and Dalit communities of the Sijimali hills against the improper lease of the hills to Vedanta Ltd. and neighbouring Kutrumali hills to the Adani Group’s Mundra Aluminium Ltd by the Government of Odisha for the purpose of Bauxite mining. We demand their immediate and unconditional release.
Dr. Randall Sequeira and Shri Laxman Naik were picked up by Bhawanipatna Town police from Dr. Sequeira’s residence in Hill Town, Bhawanipatna, Kalahandi, Odisha, at around 11 PM on 16th October, 2026. Two police jeeps surrounded the house. Around six policemen, most of them in plain clothes and led by the Inspector-in-Charge of Bhawanipatna Town police station, entered the home without a warrant or notice and without stating any reason. They took away both men’s phones without a seizure memo and took the two men to Bhawanipatna Town police station, where they were held through the night without access to lawyers or family. At around 6 am on 17 October they were moved out of Bhawanipatna. For the next twelve hours, police refused to tell their lawyers or families where they were being taken or what they were charged with. They were finally produced before the Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM), Rayagada, at 6:30 pm on 17 October. Yet the official intimation sent to Dr. Sequeira’s home records his arrest at 10 am on 17 October. It makes no mention of the night spent in police custody or his transfer to Rayagada district though Section 48 of the BNSS requires notification of a relative, friend or another person nominated by the arrested person.
Laxman Naik’s family reports not receiving any notice at all, though the law requires one under Section 48 of the BNSS. When they were produced, the magistrate did not ask them how they had been treated in custody, and did not record Dr. Sequeira’s account of their ill-treatment and the seizure of their phones. Their bail applications were rejected, and both were sent to Rayagada Sub-Jail. The present arrests, occurring just before the courts close for vacation until 27 October, risk making the process itself a punishment.
These arrests are part of a sustained pattern where the state is responding to dissent with repression rather than a dialogue. Dr. Randall Sequeira and Shri Laxman Naik have been arrested in Kashipur Police Station Case No. 85/2026. The case relates to the night of 6 - 7 April 2026 in Kantamal village, Rayagada. That night a large police contingent entered the village, and indiscriminate lathi injured many villagers as well as police personnel. Neither Dr.Sequeira nor Laxman Naik is named in this FIR. Yet the police have charged them with a battery of grave offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita:
