Freedom Fighter Bhabani Patnaik stopped during Bhasha Andolan March

The 95-year-old freedom fighter Bhabani Charan Patnaik and three other eminent personalities were blocked by the security personnel yesterday during their silent black flag march from Odisha Assembly to Madhu Babau’s statue at the Governor’s Square.

The Nonagenarian was forced to stand for 20 minutes to give a smooth passage to CM Naveen Patnaik into the Secretariat. Unable to bear the heat and pain, he collapsed and sat on the road. Later, he was offered water and then continued to march when the cops gave green signal.

The Bhasha Andolan entered the 11th day today. During yesterday’s march, freedom fighter Bhabani Patnaik, former Vice Chancellor of Sanskrit University, Narendra Mishra, Columnist Bhagirathi Mahasuara and Dr. Sadananda Dixit took part in the march.

They were later joined by many others including Subhas Chandra Pattanayak, Pradyumna Satpathy, Pabitra Maharatha, Sagar Satapathy, Tusarakanta Satpathy, Subhash Pradhan, Madhumita Samal, Sanjay Panda, Nandakishore Samal, Pabitra Mohan Samal, Rajyabardhan Jena, Sumanta Muduli, Kaliprasad Samantray etc.