We can not free Maoists from Jail: Home Minister

     Korba, April 27, 2012: Chhattisgarh Government today expressed its inability to free any Maoists, currently lodged in various jails of the state.

     “We do not have power to release any of the Maoists,” Home Minister Nanki Ram Kanwar told reporters here.

     Since the Courts are hearing the matters relating to the Maoists, either Court, Governor or the President can take a decision on that matter, Kanwar said.

     He also appealed to the Maoists to release the Sukma District Collector Alex V F Paul Menon V unconditionally.

     To a question, the Home Minister made the Collector responsible for his own abduction.

      Because of his own mistake, the Collector was kidnapped, Kanwar said adding during his tour of the Maoist areas, Menon should have taken sufficient forces with him.

     When the 2006-batch IAS officer was on a tour of the Majhipara area in Sukma District during Gram Suraj Abhiyan on April 21, he was confronted by the Maoists guerrilla and after exchange of fire, the civil servant was kidnapped by Maoists after killing both his body guards.

     A day after his kidnap on gun point, the Maoists on April 22, last asked the Chhattisgarh government to fulfill by April 25, its demands to secure the release of Menon.

     “The fate of the Collector would be decided at a Jan Adalat (People’s court) if the Raman Singh Government will not fulfill the demands,” Secretary of South Bastar Divisional Committee of the CPI (Maoists) Vijay Madkam in a pre-recorded statement to the BBC said.

     The Maoist leader said if the state government wanted the release of the ‘arrested’ Collector then the Government should immediately halt the Operation Green Hunt.

     Operation Green Hunt be stopped immediately, joint search by the police, combing operation be halt and the forces be confined to the barracks only, the statement reportedly said.

     False cases be dropped against hundreds of innocent villagers, who are currently lodged in Dantewada and Raipur jails, it said.

     They also demanded release of “innocent tribals Kartam Joga, Vijay Sodhi, Sannu Mandavi, Sudru Kunjam, Lala Kunjam, who have been falsely implicated” in the case of attack on the house of a Congress leader at Kuakonda and lodged in Dantewada and Jagdalpur jails. Besides them, Rajesh Nayak Banjara of Village Gorgonda and Mandavi Dula of Village Burkapal have to be released, they added.

     The Maoists have also forwarded names of some of their prominent leaders like Madkam Gopanna (Satyam Reddy), Nirmalakka (C. Vijayakshmi), Jaypal (Chandrasekhar Reddy), Malti (Shanti Priya Reddy), Meena Choudhury, Korsa Sanni (village Murunga, block Bijapur), Madkam Sanni (village Darbhaguda, block Konta, Dist Sukma) and demanded dismissal of cases against them and they should be released along with senior journalist P K Jha and Asit Kumar Sen for the release of the Collector Sukma.