New Delhi: The most enduring image of Randall Sequeira among tribal communities in the bauxite-rich hills of Kalahandi and Rayagada districts in southwestern Odisha is a bearded, bespectacled, lanky doctor on a motorcycle, travelling by his Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle between far-flung villages not easily reached by road to treat the sick.
So, the Odisha police’s arrest of 39-year-old Randall on 16 October 2026 and his subsequent judicial custody in a Rayagada jail has shocked the people he serves.
“Doctor Babu has been working here for the past decade or so,” Laxman Majhi, a farmer from Kerpai village, told this reporter over the phone. “He would visit villages on his motorcycle and offer treatment to people afflicted with malaria, diarrhoea, skin diseases or other forms of communicable illnesses.”
“The nearest primary health care centre is more than 60 km away in Thuamul Rampur,” said Majhi. “But Doctor Babu is like a mobile hospital. He often lives in a tiled hut in Kerpai. He visits households himself and provides free treatment.”
“Often, he provides us with free medicines,” he said. “He shares information with local people on how various diseases can be prevented through proper food, cleanliness and hygiene.”
Kerpai is a village in the Thuamul Rampur block of Kalahandi district bordering Rayagada.
It is among many villages in the hills and forests of the two districts, which lie over rich bauxite deposits. These villages fall in areas classified as Schedule V under the Indian Constitution, where special provisions apply to administration and governance because of the preponderance of tribal population.
Anti-Mining Protests & Arrests Of Adivasis
The Rayagada-Kalahandi region has seen anti-mining protests since the late 2000s, when the Odisha government proposed extracting bauxite from the Niyamgiri Hills for Vedanta Limited, a London-headquartered company owned by billionaire businessman Anil Agarwal.
The Dongria Kondh, a “particularly vulnerable tribal group” (PVTG) in government parlance, consider the Niyamgiri Hills sacred, worship the hills, and believe they are the abode of their presiding deity, Niyam Raja.
The region saw widespread protests against the proposed bauxite mining project at Niyamgiri.
In a landmark judgement in April 2013, the Supreme Court of India left it to local communities to decide whether to clear 660.749 hectares of forestland for the proposed bauxite project.
In 2014, the Odisha government scrapped the mining project after 12 Gram Sabhas (village-level councils comprising all adult members) rejected the proposal to divert the forest land for mining.
In April 2026, protests erupted against another proposed bauxite mining project in the region by Vedanta Limited. The project, proposed over Sijimali Hill—known in local parlance as Tijimali—also straddles Rayagada and Kalahandi districts and has faced opposition over alleged fake consent from local communities in Gram Sabha meetings to divert forest land for mining. Tribal communities also consider Sijimali Hill sacred.
On 7 April, more than 100 people, including cops, were reportedly injured in violence that broke out between the police and local communities near the site of a proposed greenfield road that will connect the Sijimali hilltop with a state highway.
Police named Randall as an accused in one of the three FIRs registered after the violence. The Odisha High Court granted him bail in this case.
Randall’s arrest is among a series of crackdowns by the police upon prominent anti-mining leaders of the region.
Many of these arrests have occurred amid Vedanta Limited’s renewed push for bauxite mining in Niyamgiri, following a meeting between the company’s chairperson, Anil Agarwal, and Odisha chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi on 26 September.
On 10 September, police arrested Lada Sikaka, a Dongria Kondh leader and president of Niyamgiri Surakhya Samiti, a grassroots organisation opposed to bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri Hills, and produced him in court in an FIR under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, better known as UAPA.
The FIR dates back to 2012 when the agitation against the Niyamgiri project was at its peak. According to Sikaka’s lawyers, he is currently being tried in at least a dozen other cases.
Before Sikaka’s arrest, Lingaraj Azad, an advisor to the Niyamgiri Surakhya Samiti and a member of the left-of-centre political party Samajwadi Jan Parishad, was arrested on 25 March. His arrest came during the buildup of the protests against the Sijimali project. He continues to languish in jail.
On 28 August, another prominent activist, Hiramal Naik, a leading member of Maa Mati Mali Surakhya Manch, which opposes Vedanta Group’s Sijimali bauxite mining project, was jailed after his arrest.
Arrested & Jailed
On the night of 16 October, an Odisha police team arrested Randall at his residence in Bhawanipatna town, Kalahandi district.
Randall’s lawyers said he was subsequently produced in the court of a sub-divisional judicial magistrate in an FIR (first information report) pertaining to the violence that had erupted on 7 April during a pre-dawn raid by the police in Kantamal village of Rayagada to arrest a leader of Maa Mati Mali Surakhya Manch, a grassroots organisation representing tribal communities opposed to bauxite mining in the Sijimali Hill.
Randall is not directly named as an accused in this FIR, which invokes sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) including those pertaining to attempt to murder, rioting, dacoity and use of arms.
The court sent Randall to judicial custody in a Rayagada jail after he was produced. His lawyers will move the court for bail once it reopens on 27 October.
Along with Randall, a tribal leader, Laxman Naik, of Maa Mati Mali Surakhya Manch, was also arrested.
Nagaraj Devarakonda, the superintendent of police (SP) of Kalahandi district, told Article 14 that a police team from Rayagada arrested Randall at his Bhawanipatna town residence.
“The Kalahandi police merely provided logistical back-up to the Rayagada team,” said Devarakonda.
Rayagada SP Raj Prasad did not respond to repeated calls and text messages.
The deputy inspector general (DIG) of the southwestern range, Akhileshwar Singh, who oversees six districts, including Rayagada and Kalahandi, also did not respond to us.
Singh told the Press Trust of India that Randall was “not innocent”.
“The arrested persons were not innocent,” said Singh “Dr Randall Sequeira was not providing medical services to the people but was engaged in instigating tribals against the State government… Why do police arrest any innocent person, especially a doctor?”
“There are many doctors working in Kalahandi and Rayagada districts, but no one has been arrested except Dr Sequeira,” said Singh. “The people who claim that he is innocent should see whether the doctor was providing medical services to the people or instigating them.”
On 18 October, the pro-poor healthcare resource group Medico Friends Circle, of which Randall is a member, released a solidarity statement demanding their immediate, unconditional release from jail.
“These arrests are in the context of the constitutionally legitimate struggle of the Adivasi and Dalit communities of the Sijimali hills against the improper lease of the hills to Vedanta Ltd. and neighbouring Kutrumali hills to the Adani Group’s Mundra Aluminium Ltd [now officially known as Kalinga Alumina Limited] by the Government of Odisha for the purpose of Bauxite mining,” said the statement.
Since 2023, Randall has been actively involved as a solidarity worker and healthcare trainer with local grassroots organisations like the Maa Mati Mali Surakhya Manch and the Niyamgiri Surakhya Samiti, which are opposed to the taking away of land and forests of tribal communities in Rayagada and Kalahandi for bauxite mining.
Prohibitory Order Quashed
His arrest on 16 October is not the first time he has clashed with the police and the administrative machinery of southwestern Odisha.
In 2025, the Rayagada administration issued an ex parte order imposing a blanket ban on Randall from entering the district for two months.
The Odisha High Court later quashed this order.
The prohibitory order was issued on 4 June 2025 “citing urgency and risk to public tranquillity (sic.)” after Randall was “allegedly found circulating pamphlets, maps, and anti-mining materials in villages around the Sijimali Hills”.
Allegedly, Randall and 23 others from the Maa Mati Mali Surakhya Manch planned a large gathering at Sunger Hatapada on the local weekly market day on 5 June 2025, coinciding with World Environment Day.
Based on intelligence that the gathering could be substantially large and pose law-and-order risks, the administration issued the prohibitory order without notice to Randall and others.
The administration also justified the order on the ground that the gathering could lead to “significant congestion, economic disruption, and potential violence”.
The Rayagada district administration told the High Court that Randall was a “threat to public peace” owing to his “consistent efforts to instigate tribal communities against government initiatives, particularly in connection with the Sijimali mining project”.
It was alleged that Randall had a “chequered past” involving “anti-mining activities, including the distribution of pamphlets, participation in undisclosed meetings, and encouragement of unauthorized assemblies.”
Further, intelligence reports also alleged that there were “possible linkages between the planned gathering [on World Environment Day] and extremist or Naxalite elements active in the region.”
The high court quashed the order, finding no material evidence that the proposed peaceful protest posed an immediate and grave threat of violence or public disorder.
The court also found that the protest was planned as a “one-day, peaceful gathering to coincide with World Environment Day, lacking any suggestion of arms or inflammatory agenda.”
Setting aside the prohibitory order, the single-judge bench of Justice S K Panigrahi said:
“The State’s concerns were admittedly based on a generalised apprehension that any large protest might attract miscreants or degenerate into clashes, especially with limited police presence on that day. However, our constitutional jurisprudence demands a fairly high threshold of actual risk before fundamental rights can be curtailed.”
‘An Extremely Painful & Difficult Time’
Randall arrived in Kalahandi in July 2017, after completing his post-graduation in internal medicine at Sawai Man Singh Medical College and Hospital in Jaipur, Rajasthan.
Randall graduated from St John’s Medical College Hospital in 2011. His family is originally from Mangalore, Karnataka.
Randall’s father, Alex Sequeira, is a retired senior executive from a private company. His mother, Nancy Sequeira, retired as a senior executive from NABARD. She is also an accomplished carrom player and has won several tournaments.
They are both retired but remain actively involved in community service and live in Mumbai.
In a written statement to Article 14, Alex Sequeira and Nancy Sequeira said they were “deeply distressed” but had “faith in the judicial process and hope that the circumstances surrounding his case will be examined fairly and impartially.”
“As parents, this is an extremely painful and difficult time for us,” they said.
"We wish to state that, to our knowledge and belief, our son has dedicated his professional life to healing and serving people, especially the poor and marginalised,” they said. “We pray that he receives a fair hearing and that justice prevails. Our earnest prayer is for his early release so that he may be reunited with us and, in due course, continue the work of service to which he has devoted his life."
A Doctor’s Work
After securing a fellowship to practice clinical medicine in a low-resource health setting, Randall began working with the non-profit Swasthya Swaraj in October 2017.
The non-profit runs a comprehensive community health programme in the tribal-dominated Thuamul Rampur block.
Though Randall parted ways with Swasthya Swaraj in March 2020, he continued working with various other public service organisations and non-profits in the Rayagada-Kalahandi region to impart community healthcare.
These include Living Farms, a non-profit in rural Odisha working on issues including livelihood security and health and nutrition of tribal communities, and another non-governmental organisation, the Development Agency for Poor and Tribal Awakening (DAPTA), which works in the areas of education, healthcare, women’s rights, food security and sustainable development.
“Randall is very committed to the cause of the people living in the hills of southwestern Odisha,” a close friend of Randall said, requesting anonymity. “He came to this area for a fellowship, but later realised there is a much deeper malaise. The region lacks community health care, which cannot be overcome through treatment of isolated patients in a hospital setting.”
“Randall is of the firm belief that isolated treatment cannot overcome lack of community healthcare and equates it with the practice of mopping a floor with the tap running,” the friend said. “He, therefore, began imparting basic information and training on preventive healthcare to local communities. His entire life is dedicated to this purpose.”
Busting Myths
According to Randall’s friends in Medico Friends Circle, since March 2022, he has also been travelling to Sukinda—a mineral-rich town nearly 450 km from his residence in Bhawanipatna—in Odisha’s Jajpur district to treat patients suffering from tuberculosis due to the adverse impacts of rampant chromite mining.
“I first met Randall nearly 10 years ago as a young and energetic man while he was working for the non-profit Swasthya Swaraj that is run by a close friend of mine,” said Pradip Chatterjee, a doctor at Medico Friends Circle. When I visited the non-profit again a year later, Randall took me out on his motorcycle for seafood in Bhawanipatna town. Since then, I have stayed in regular touch with him. His dedication to the cause of serving humanity is infectious.”
Chatterjee said that in recent years Randall has been working with tribal communities on the adverse impacts of bauxite mining on their health and environment, even though the mineral’s end product, aluminium, is marketed as a safe, cheap metal compared with iron and steel.
He said Randall had been working to dispel the myth that large-scale, industrial aluminium use is safe.
Randall also authored a paper on this subject with three co-authors, which was on the verge of publication when he was arrested.
Asked about why Randall has been in the crosshairs of the police and administration over the past couple of years, Chatterjee said: “The police and the government are opposed to anyone who questions their concept of ‘pragati' or development. For the powers-that-be, development flows from the barrel of the gun. On the other hand, tribal communities do not want to give up their hills and forests, where they have lived a syncretic existence since time immemorial, for mining. The answer, perhaps, lies somewhere in between.”
(Ayaskant Das is an Indian journalist with nearly two decades of experience reporting on the environment, mining, displacement, and industrial projects, focusing on their impact on marginalised communities.)
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