Residents divided over name change of Malkangiri villages

Resentment is brewing in parts of Malkangiri district over a move to rename villages originally designated as 'MV' (Malkangiri Village), with members of the Bengali community expressing frustration and intellectuals calling for government intervention.

- POST NEWS NETWORK

For more than 50 years, these villages have been home to refugees from Bangladesh, who were displaced during the post-Partition period and resettled in Odisha by the state government. Each family was allotted land and housing, and the villages were named sequentially as MV-1 through MV-200. The later settlements housing the next batch of refugees were named MPV (Malkangiri Potteru Village) starting from MPV-1 and beyond, covering more than 30 villages.