Raipur The Chhattisgarh government has virtually called a halt to its anti-Maoist offensive until Sukma district collector Alex Paul Menon is released from captivity, official sources said Monday.
"The whole focus is now to secure the safe and early release of Alex Paul Menon. The anti-Maoist operation issue can follow later on," a senior official at the police headquarters here told IANS.
The Maoists have demanded that Operation Green Hunt be halted and called for the release of eight of their jailed colleagues in exchange for Menon, whom they took hostage on Saturday.
Menon, 32, a 2006 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, was kidnapped at gunpoint in a forested location, some 500km south from here, while he was interacting with tribals.
The Maoists killed the district collector's two guards when they resisted attempts to abduct him.
Final call
"The state government is considering the Maoists' demands very sympathetically but it will take a final call on the matter [after] taking the central government and the state's political parties into total confidence," sources in the home department said.
The state government has also formed a five-member team headed by Chief Minister Raman Singh to look into the demands of the Maoists. The team includes Brijmohan Agrawal, public works department minister; Ramvichar Netam, water resources minister; Nankiram Kanwar, home minister, and Kedar Kashyap, tribal welfare minister.
In a message released late on Sunday, Maoists said that Chhattisgarh's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime must free their colleagues — Marakam Gopannam, Nirmal Akka, Devpal Chandra Shekhar Reddy, Shanti Priya Reddy, Meena Chowdhary, Korasa Sunny, Markan Sunny and Asit Kumar Sen — by April 25 in exchange for the kidnapped district collector.
"The whole focus is now to secure the safe and early release of Alex Paul Menon. The anti-Maoist operation issue can follow later on," a senior official at the police headquarters here told IANS.
The Maoists have demanded that Operation Green Hunt be halted and called for the release of eight of their jailed colleagues in exchange for Menon, whom they took hostage on Saturday.
Menon, 32, a 2006 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, was kidnapped at gunpoint in a forested location, some 500km south from here, while he was interacting with tribals.
The Maoists killed the district collector's two guards when they resisted attempts to abduct him.
Final call
"The state government is considering the Maoists' demands very sympathetically but it will take a final call on the matter [after] taking the central government and the state's political parties into total confidence," sources in the home department said.
The state government has also formed a five-member team headed by Chief Minister Raman Singh to look into the demands of the Maoists. The team includes Brijmohan Agrawal, public works department minister; Ramvichar Netam, water resources minister; Nankiram Kanwar, home minister, and Kedar Kashyap, tribal welfare minister.
In a message released late on Sunday, Maoists said that Chhattisgarh's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime must free their colleagues — Marakam Gopannam, Nirmal Akka, Devpal Chandra Shekhar Reddy, Shanti Priya Reddy, Meena Chowdhary, Korasa Sunny, Markan Sunny and Asit Kumar Sen — by April 25 in exchange for the kidnapped district collector.
