Soren surrenders to Maoists

NEW DELHI: The fight against Naxalites suffered a major setback when Jharkhand chief minister Shibu Soren entered a swap deal by accepting the Maoists demand to free 14 jailed persons in exchange for the release of an abducted Jharkhand Block Development Officer.

The Wednesday night development, which security experts described as “capitulation before red menace” will come in the way of plans to tackle Naxal violence.

Within hours of Mr Soren making an announcement in Ranchi that the legal process to release the arrested persons has begun, Maoists on Thursday killed around 10 villagers and abducted 10 others from Phulwari Korsi in Jamui district of Bihar.

Over a hundred heavily armed Maoists posed as police informers and set several houses ablaze. The police were just a km from the place, but could not reach the spot as Maoists had laid landmines on the road. The strike was said to be in retaliation to the police arresting eight Maoists from the area, with help from villagers, according to leaflets left at the spot.

In Ranchi, Mr Soren had said “Maoists have set some conditions to set free Dalbhumgarh BDO Prasant Kumar Layek. Their chief demand is to release innocent villagers lodged in Dalbhumgarh jail. All the cases are pending in the court.” He appealed to the Maoists to set free the BDO, who was kidnapped on Saturday, unharmed at the earliest.
Jharkhand has been the worst affected by Maoist violence with many of its districts under the influence of Naxalites.

Mr Soren has been playing footsie with the Maoists and there were unconfirmed reports that he took their help in the last assembly elections. He had stayed away from the recent meeting of chief ministers of Naxal affected states convened by home minister P Chidambaram in Kolkata on the pretext of bad health.

The Jharkhand government has also put on hold the ongoing search operations for Layek’s release. “We have not stopped the search operation but put it on hold today to allow enough space to the Maoists for the safe release of Layek,” East Singhbhum deputy commissioner Ravindra Agarwal said.

The Maoists, who had demanded a statement from the chief minister, said they will release Layek only if the state government gave in writing that it would fulfil their demands, including unconditional release of 14 of their men arrested by police. The Maoists had alleged that all the 14 were implicated in false cases by police. Just three days ago, over a hundred Maoists attacked a ERF camp in Silda in West Bengal instantly killing 24 security personnel.