RAIPUR: Amid the lockdown, a Chhattisgarh cop, who got stuck in his village in Bijapur in south Bastar as he was on leave, never knew that he would be abducted by the Maoists.
The policeman, Santosh Kattam, who was working as an electrician, was kidnaped on May 4 - the incident, not even his department knew for a couple of days. His wife Sunita contacted the police and the people in the nearby villages seeking help but in vain. Finally on May 6, she called up Bijapur-based scribe Ganesh Mishra seeking his support.
“Moved by her emotive plea, I made up my mind to do whatever I can in my capacity to trace his husband. All alone I began hunting for inputs from villagers and visited various remote tribal hamlets”, Mishra told the New Indian Express.
Not getting any clue, he persisted looking around for the jawan as there was none even to confirm about his abduction.
“Some villagers eventually got sympathetic towards my quest and informed the Maoists who then contacted me on May 9. The rebels admitted that Kattam was in their captivity, interrogated and taken to different locations. I attempted to convince them that as an electrician in the police force he can never be a part of combat operations against the rebels.
"Besides, the kidnapped policeman was mentally disturbed. So, as a humane gesture and considering the plea of his wife and children, he should be set free. But the naxals appeared reluctant asserting that a member of police department means a part of the force”, Mishra said, recollecting his negotiations with the Maoists inside the dense forest.
“I kept reassuring that he has nothing to do with weapons or any anti-Maoist operation. Then they perhaps took up the matter with their senior leaders”, the scribe added.
In the evening of the next day, Mishra got a phone call from the Maoists asking him to visit some unidentified location where the rebels had scheduled to organise the Jan Adalat (Naxal’s Kangaroo court). “I was told to come along with two of my colleagues and the jawan’s family members”, he said.
Mishra, accompanied by his colleagues Ranjan Das and Chetan Khaperwar (both journalists), travelled about 40 km through the forest to attend it.
“During a two-hour Jan Adalat in the afternoon of May 11, the electrician was grilled. Finally on the basis of majority views elicited from villagers in the Adalat, the Maoists released Kattam. We brought him and handed over to Bijapur deputy SP Ziarat Baig”, Mishra said.
“This is for the first time the Rebels had set free police personnel from a Jan Adalat — something very rare”, he said.
After his release, the banned Red brigade declared that they were setting him free on humanitarian ground. “The state government, which was least concerned about the abducted personnel, shouldn’t think his release as its victory. We set him free owing to the intervention of the media person, the appeal by the family, and the opinion of the villagers”, the Maoists affirmed.
After he was freed, Kattam said he had lost hope after remaining in Maoists’ captivity for a week.
Earlier in 2011, Mishra and his friends had facilitated the release of four jawans from the captivity of the Left-wing extremists.