Puri: The physical assault on an Odisha bureaucrat has acquired astronomical proportions. So much so that the chief minister had to step in to vow strict action against those involved.

Chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi was impelled to assure the Odisha Administrative Service Association (OAS) officers of strict action after they had threatened to go on mass leave. As of now, the officers have postponed their mass leave plan.

CM Majhi, together with the chief secretary, the Director General of Police, and the Commissioner of Police, met with members of the OAS Association . In the meeting, Majhi gave his assurance that all those accountable for the incident would face strict punishment under the stringent provisions of the law.

The association informed in a release that the CM also urged the members not to proceed with the planned leave or take similar actions and appealed to them to trust his commitment. The officers had previously declared a mass leave to protest the reported assault on BMC

Additional Commissioner Ratnakar Sahoo. The senior official was dragged outside of his office and assaulted by a group of youths during a grievance redressal meeting. Later, The BJP state unit president Manmohan Samal suspended five BJP workers, including a corporator from the primary membership of the party. The suspended party workers include Corporator Aparup Narayan Raut, Rashmi Ranjan Mohapatra, Debashis Pradhan, Sachikant Swain and Sanjeev Mishra. Acting on the FIR lodged by the victim OAS officer Sahoo, the police had earlier arrested three of the BJP workers, namely Raut, Mohapatra and Pradhan for their involvement in the assault.

Meanwhile, senior BJP leader Jagannath Pradhan on Tuesday claimed that the allegations made against him by Mayor Sulochana Das and other BJD leaders were nothing but political vendetta. Sharing the video of the incident on his X profile, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president and former chief minister Naveen Patnaik wrote, “I am utterly shocked seeing this video.” “The people named by the officer in his FIR have behaved like criminals. If a senior officer is not safe in his own office, then what law and order will ordinary citizens expect from the Government,” he said in his post.