MALKANGIRI: After more than 48 hours of detaining four motor launches and nine drivers at Sindhiput and Jantri in Swabhiman Anchala, Maoists on Friday released all the vessels and drivers.
A group of Maoists in plain clothes had detained the four vessels on Wednesday noon when they arrived at Sindhiput and Jantri asking the drivers not to use the vessels till polling comes to an end at 4 pm on Thursday. The Maoists had called for poll boycott and took the vessels into their custody to prevent polling officials and voters from going to booths. The motor launches reached Chitrakonda ghat on Friday noon.
In a poster put up on one of the launches, the Maoists wrote that people in Swabhiman Anchala wanted to boycott polls as election is not going to address the problems that they have been facing for decades.
On Thursday, all the nine makeshift polling booths set up at one place near Kunuturpadar BSF base camp in Swabhiman Anchala witnessed zero polling due to Maoists fear.