Abducted Bihar policeman’s village people hold highway protest

PATNA - Hundreds of people from the village of abducted policeman Abhay Kumar Yadav Saturday blocked a national highway to protest the Bihar government’s failure to rescue the sub-inspector who is among the three policemen being held hostage by Maoists.

Yadav along with three other policemen was abducted by Maoists after a six-hour gunfight in Lakhisarai district Sunday. One of the policemen was killed by the ultra-left guerrillas on Friday.

Angry villagers, mostly from Mohanpur, the native village of Yadav, and nearby villages in Begusarai district, blocked National Highway 31 and threatened to disrupt rail services if the state government failed to rescue him.

“Villagers shouted slogans against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and blocked the national highway since Saturday morning,” a police official in Begusarai told IANS.

Mohanpur village is hardly one km from the national highway. The entire village is tense and angry with the government for having failed to rescue Yadav.

Meanwhile, Rajni Devi, Yadav’s wife, has threatened that she and her family members will immolate themselves if her husband is not rescued. Rajni’s health condition has reportedly deteriorated and Yadav’s aged mother Naina Devi is in a state of shock.

On Saturday, Maoist spokesperson Avinash apologised for wrongly saying that they had killed Yadav. The rebels said the other three policemen were safe. They left the bullet-riddled body of Bihar policeman Lucas Tete in the forest.

The other abducted policemen are Rupesh Kumar Sinha and Ehsan Khan.

The Maoists are demanding the release of eight jailed Maoist leaders. The decision to kill Tete was taken by a ‘jan adalat’, a kangaroo court, of the Maoists.

The Maoists have warned the Bihar government of more attacks if the operations against them did not stop immediately.