Bhubaneswar, Aug 25: A high-alert has been sounded across Orissa and additional security forces have been deployed in view of the Vishawa Hindu Parishad (VHP)’s 12-hour dawn-to-dusk state-wide shutdown today against the killing of a senior VHP functionary on Saturday night.

Around 20 platoons of the state police and four companies of CRPF have been deployed following tense situation in the tribal dominated Kandhmal district where the VHP leader Swami Laxmananda Saraswati and his four followers were killed by unidentified assailants.

Fearing communal violence, the district administration has imposed curfew in parts of the district, and announced closure of all schools, colleges and other academic institutions.

The State Government has ordered a judicial enquiry into the killings. A massive manhunt has been launched to nab the culprits.

Soon after the attack on the 85-year-old VHP leader, the VHP activists and other saffron outfits staged demonstrations, blocked roads and stopped trains at several places. The VHP leader, who had been working among tribals against religious conversion, was gunned down at an ashram for girls at Jalespeta in Tumudibandh block.

Prohibitory orders were clamped in the communally sensitive district and security tightened on Sunday.

State Chief Minister Navin Patnaik has announced an ex-gratia of two lakh rupees each to the families of the dead. (ANI)