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Abducted junior engineer Pabitra Majhi was freed on Wednesday by Maoists in Orissa after a seven day ordeal but release of Malkangiri district collector R V Krishna was clouded in uncertainty with the rebels setting a new condition for his release.
The hostage crisis got complicated after the Maoists made a fresh demand for the immediate release of five key Naxals in return for the freedom of Krishna, taking by surprise the mediators who later made an appeal that the 30-year-old IAS officer be set free by Thursday evening.
Krishna was abducted along with Majhi on February 16 from Chitrakonda, about 150 km from Malkangiri. While Naxal leader Ganti Prasadam was granted bail earlier in the day by Orissa High Court, the abductors demanded that five others including Padma, wife of a top rebel, be also freed from jail, official sources said.
The condition laid by the abductors was conveyed to Malkangiri district administration in a letter sent through Majhi, they said. The Orissa government has already accepted all the 14 demands set by the Maoists. The abductors also expressed their intention to release the collector in public, in the presence of the three Maoist-chosen mediators who held talks with Orissa government and project director of District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), Malkangiri, sources said.
Following the new demand, Ganti Prasadam, mediator G Hargopal and Maoist ideologue Varavara Rao made a joint appeal to the Maoists to release the district collector within 24 hours, Hargopal told reporters. Stating that the new issue raised by naxals was beyond the purview of Orissa government, he said, "We are happy that the junior engineer has been released but additional condition will complicate the issue as yesterday we had already made commitment of release of both the hostages in 48 hours.We as mediators are surprised. We did not expect additional demand will come up. We appeal to them (abductors) to free the collector in 24 hours. He said their appeal was being aired through radio in English and Telugu as Maoists listen to radio regularly. The high court had granted bail to Ganti Prasadam, whose release is among the conditions set by Naxals for the safe return of Krishna and Majhi.
"Majhi was taken by local villagers on a motor-cycle to Chitrakonda after being released by the Maoists in a remote forest in Malkangiri," Chitrakonda Tehsildar D Gopal Krishna said over phone. Majhi said the Maoists while setting him free have promised to release Krishna, whose whereabouts were not known, within "48 hours" and that the official was "fine and being treated well".