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Maoists release five abducted cops in
Chhattisgarh
Joseph John
Posted online: Fri
Feb 11 2011, 22:55 hrs
Raipur :
After 18 days
in Maoist captivity in the dense forests of Bastar, five security personnel
walked free as the rebels handed over them to social activist Swami Agnivesh
today in the dense forests of Dhoudai in Narayanpur district of tribal
Bastar even as the police kept its promise not to carryout search operations
as demanded by the Naxalites.
Swami Agnivesh, rights
activist Gautam Navlakha, PUCL secretary Kavita Shrivastava, Chennai High
Court Lawyer V Suresh, PUDR member Harish Dhawan and Sarvadharma Sansad
representative Manu Singh—met the Naxalites in the forests of Dhodai in
Abujmarh. The rebels handed over the five policemen to the activists as
promised earlier.
“We have received
preliminary report that they are on their way to district headquarters of
Narayanpur. They could take about an hour to reach the nearest motorable
road for proceeding towards the district headquarters”, official sources
said in the state capital adding “There are no communication facilities or
mobile network in the area. We will be able to say anything more only after
civil authorities come in contact with them”.
Social and Human rights
activists—who had stayed over night at Bastar divisional headquarters of
Jagdalpur—left for Narayanpur early morning accompanied by the relatives of
abducted policemen. A large number of media personnel also accompanied the
activists as they proceeded to Abujmarh forests to secure the release of
security personnel at an undisclosed destination. There was confusion
throughout the day as the Maoists did not contact them, as promised,
apparently because of the presence of media personnel and other unknown
people in the convoy. Besides, the Naxalites had also frequently changed the
location for handing over the hostages due to “security reasons”.
Finally, all the
vehicles in the convoy were stopped at a place and Swamy Agnivesh, Gautam
Navlakha and others proceeded deep into the forests of Abujmarh to meet the
rebels and the hostages. Their mission ended up in success after the rebels
handed over all the five hostages to them.
“We had suspended the
ongoing search and combing operation in the entire region ever since the
Naxalites made the demand for it to facilitate the safe release of
policemen”, Inspector General of Police (Bastar range) T J Longkumer said.
Manoj Ekka, brother of
constable T Ekka, said over telephone that he was happy to hear about the
safe release of the hostages. “Yes. It is a big relief. We are eagerly
waiting to meet them”, he said with a chocked voice as the news about their
release came in.
Three head constables
Ramadhar Patel, Raghunandan Yadav, T Ekka and constables Manishankar Dubey
and Ranjan Dubey were abducted by the Naxalites on January 25 from
Narayanpur district in Bastar region. These security personnel of
Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) , who were in civil dress, were proceeding on
leave and were travelling in a private bus when the rebels intercepted the
vehicle, searched the passengers and identified them as policemen on the
basis of their identity cards,. A civilian, Gulchand, was abducted along
with these police as the Naxalites suspected him to be a Special Police
Officer (SPO) but later he was released.
A week after the
abduction, the Naxalites raised 11 demands, including scrapping of the
proposed Army training centre to be set up in the foothills of Abujmarh,
considered as one of the Maoist stronghold. Later, the rebels telephoned
Journalists to convey that they were ready to handover the hostages to Swami
Agnivesh and Gautam Navlakha, in the presence of media, if the government
stopped search and combing operations in the entire region. The rebels had
also maintained that all these five policemen were produced before a "Jan
Adalat" (Peoples' Court of Maoists), which "pardoned" them, on humanitarian
considerations.
Chief Minister Raman
Singh agreed to the demand, paving way for the safe release of five abducted
security personnel—four of them hail from Chhattisgarh and one from Rewa
district of neighbouring Madhya Pradesh.
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