Kandhmal:
Two Italian citizens were taken hostage by Maoists at an undisclosed location in Odisha's Kandhamal district on Saturday. One of the two abducted men, Boscusco Paolo, has been visiting Odisha sinch 1999 and runs a travel agency in Puri that takes foreign tourists on tribal tours. The other, Clandio Colangilo, is a tourist.
Late last night, the Maoists sent an audio message to NDTV claiming responsibility. (
Listen to the Maoists' audio message here)
The Maoists have reportedly issued a deadline to the state and Union governments to stop all combing operations in the state by Sunday evening and initiate a process of dialogue with them.
The Maoists also want the state government to act on the 13-point charter of demands. Some of these are long-standing demands like the release of political prisoners and the halt to Operation Greenhunt.
The state government today held an emergency meeting of administration and police to take stock of the situation. "As per our information, two Italians were kidnapped yesterday. The investigations are on," said Odisha Home Secretary, UN Behera.
Condemning the incident, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said, "The state government is ready to hold dialogue with Maoists within the ambit of law." He also made an appeal for their release.
Sources in the Union Home Ministry said they have only received a preliminary report and that the state has not yet asked for any help. This is being viewed as a localised incident, sources added.
The Ministry of External Affairs has said that they are in close touch with the Italian Embassy and are keeping Italy updated regularly about developments on the incident. Meanwhile, the Italian Consul General has reached Bhubaneswar.
meanwhile, has said that the Italian government or its envoy have not got in touch with them yet. They said they have been following the case closely.
Though reports say that the two men were kidnapped as they were taking pictures of local women bathing on the riverside, sources say it is most likely a fall out of the internal fighting that is happening within CPI (Maoist).
Shabhasachi Panda, one of the senior Maoist figures, is believed to be responsible for the abduction. He is a moderate among the Maoists and is known to have opposed within the party the indiscriminate killings by Maoist cadres. Of late, Panda is understood to have fallen out favour with the leadership which is largely dominated by Andhra Pradesh and who are known to advocate a hard line.
Incidentally, this is the first time the Maoists have taken foreign tourists hostage.
The kidnapping comes more than a year after the Maoists abducted Malkangiri Collector R Vineel Krishna in February last year. Mr Krishna was kidnapped and held hostage by Maoists for eight days before being released. The release came after mediation by Maoist-chosen negotiators.
Dandapani Mohanty, president of the Daman Pratirodh Manch who acted as one of the three mediators negotiating the release of the Malkangiri Collector last year has appealed to the Maoists to extend the deadline to allow the state government some time to stop anti-Maoist search operations.