Family gloomy as no trace of ‘freed’ cops

RANCHI - The family of Ehsan Khan was happy Sunday morning when the news came that the Maoists had released him and the other two abducted Bihar policemen, but a pall of gloom again descended on them when there was no trace of the trio till the evening.

A self-proclaimed spokesperson of the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist had claimed the three policemen - Abhay Prasad Yadav, Rupesh Kumar Sinha and Ehsan Khan - would be released Sunday morning.

The three policemen were reportedly released by their captors in a jungle area between Lakhisarai and Jamui districts of Bihar, local journalists quoted the family members of the kidnapped men as saying.

As the news of release was flashed in the media, a smile was seen on Khan’s family members, who live in Mander block of Ranchi district, around 40 km from the Jharkhand capital.

“We are happy to hear that my son Ehsan and other policemen have been released by the Maoists. We are waiting to welcome him,” his aged father Mohiuddin Khan told IANS over telephone.

When the news of the release was not confirmed till Sunday evening, disappointment and agony was visible on the faces of the family members. “We hope they are safe,” Khan’s wife Farida Khanam told reporters in the evening.

The three cops were among four abducted by Maoists after a six-hour gunfight in Lakhisarai last Sunday, in which seven policemen were killed and 10 injured. The Maoists claimed the gunfight was in retaliation for the killing of their leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad and a journalist on the night of July 1-2 in Andhra Pradesh.

One of the abducted policeman, Lucas Tete, a resident of Jharkhand’s Simadega district, was killed by the Maoists. His body was found near Simratali forest in Lakhisarai Friday - a day after Maoists said they had killed one of the four policemen.