After two days in captivity, Maoists on Tuesday released seven poll personnel who were abducted by the Naxalites after triggering a landmine blast in Bihar’s Jamui district.
“All the seven poll personnel held captive by the Maoists have been released as a result of massive joint operation conducted by District Armed Police, Bihar Military Police, Special Auxiliary, Special Task Force, CRPF,” DGP Neelmani said in Patna on Tuesday.Official sources said following intense operation launched by the securitymen, the Naxalites moved out from the place they had sheltered the poll personnel and released them at Janamsthan in Nawada district in the wee hours on Tuesday.
The freed poll personnel then met the Jamui District Magistrate Manish Kumar on Tuesday afternoon and narrated their woes, sources said, adding a team of doctors examined them and they were medically fit.
Security personnel had mounted search operations to trace seven panchayat poll officials, who went missing after Naxalites triggered a landmine blast killing one person in Jamui district on Sunday.
The officials were on their way to conduct panchayat elections at two polling stations when the Maoists detonated a landmine on a road at Mariam hillock, the sources said.
The landmine blast had left driver Arun Mandal and a poll official Surya Narayan Yadav injured. The two were taken to a hospital where Mandal died.
The polling team members who were released were Naresh Kumar Sao, Nageshwar Mehta, Dheeraj Kumar, Manoj Kumar, Kapildeo Kumar, Shyam Deo Verma and Om Prakash Thakur.