Maoists set Orissa ASI free after 10 days

The group of Naxals led by commander of Kalinganagar Division of CPI(Maoist),Sushil,said he had freed Marandi after appeals from tribal leaders and some mediapersons. The rebel leader had demanded the release of 68 innocent tribals arrested in Keonjhar,Mayurbhanj and Kalinga Nagar area in the last three years as a bargain for the release of the ASI.

“Thank God. I am so relieved,” exclaimed Director General of Police Manmohan Praharaj,who last week to the discomfiture of his subordinates had said he had prayed to Lord Jagannath for early release of Marandi. Marandi was let off on a deserted road in Keonjhar,several kms away from Daitari police station,around afternoon. “They possibly realised that I was innocent and thus released me,but I’m very happy. I was not ill-treated,” said Marandi,who in an interview to two TV channels last week had alleged that the government was not taking any steps for his release as he was a tribal. “Just because I am a tribal,the government is not taking any step for my release. No one went to my family and enquired how they have been living and what they are eating. I am now disillusioned with the attitude of the state government. The government is not for the tribals,” he had said.

Some police officers believe that the rebels used the hostage for 10 days to slow down the police combing. In Daitari,the official’s family reacted joyously to his release.

Recounting the fateful night when the Maoists set fire to the Daitari police station and took him hostage,he said the Maoists,some of them women,asked him to accompany them. “My wife and daughter,who lived nearby,followed me. But they were warned at gun point,” said Marandi. “I survived on chapatis and salt for 10 days. I requested them to send my body back home if I died in the jungle,” he said. Life in captivity was tough as the diabetic Marandi was too tired to move around with the Maoists.