KAPDA (OSTINGELE VII) – Tensions between Sansha Kuvakei’s followers and the general population have been simmering on this colony, located on the seventh planet of the Ostingele system since Nation vessels “uplifted” all two million people at the Ostingele IV terraforming colony last year.
However, in the days following the leak of a classified report on the abductions, that tension has reached a boiling point and a number of violent clashes have been reported.
Those who publicly profess their affiliation with Kuvakei and his vision of utopia are a small minority on Kapda but have benefited from the society’s generally accepting attitudes. While family members of the missing have called for a law to criminalize the expression of support for Sansha’s Nation, the local legislature—the Shaastragya Vyavasthaapak—has so far refused to do so.
“This isn’t Rohaan,” said Grégoire Larbaud, who respresents the district including the colony’s capital city. “We are understanding and realize that it is tolerance that sets us apart from the unenlightened.”
The leaked report, which appears to have been prepared by the Intaki Assembly’s Joint Subcommittee on Interstellar Affairs, gives a strong indication that the residents of the terraforming facility were removed against their will. As word of the report reached Kapda angry residents began taking to the streets.
“It was unreal. I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Jean-Christophe Chandramouleeswaran, who works in the textile markets of Indradhanush. “They just came through the place ransacking the stalls of anyone who they suspected of supporting Nation.”
François Pitoëff, a 15-year veteran of the Indradhanush police force said the last time he had encountered a situation like this was a decade ago when a planetary drought devastated local crops and left Kapda dependent on food deliveries from neighboring colonies.
“What happens is you get a mob mentality going,” Pitoëff said. “People lose themselves and do things they would never do on their own.”
Reports are still coming in, but initial estimates place the damages at nearly five million reeya. Fortunately, no deaths were reported, although several outspoken supporters of Sansha’s Nation were beaten during the violence.
Phanishwar Mallika, one of those assaulted, spoke to reporters from his hospital bed. He condemned the report that sparked the violence and said its “leak” was an intentional effort to paint Kuvakei and his followers in a false light.
“Nation is unity. Nation is peace,” Mallika said. “When the Master comes to bring all his children home, the nonbelievers will see what a joy it is to be uplifted.”