Ejaz Kaiser By

Express News Service

RAIPUR: Hundreds of tribal students in different parts of the strife-torn Sukma district, some 400 km south of Raipur, were responsible for making hardened Naxals release a student abducted by them.

Soon after a Class 12 student, Podium Mukesh, was abducted by the outlawed CPI (Maoist), hundreds of schoolchildren, some as young as six, walked out of their schools to take out rallies in protest against the kidnapping.

The students sent out a warning saying that they would sit on a hunger strike till the student was released. This finally led to the Naxalites giving in to the demands of the students and releasing the boy.

“The boy was safely released by the Naxals who responded positively to the students' appeal for his freedom,” a senior police officer told TNIE.

The boy was kidnapped when he was returning from Bhejji to his home at Konta in Sukma. The rebels didn't give any reason for the abduction. Besides the students, the boy's parents too appealed to the Naxalites to free him on humanitarian grounds.

Till some years ago the schoolchildren were caught in a dangerous situation in the Left-Wing Extremism areas of Chhattisgarh and were often seen moving under police protection across the small towns and habitats of strife-torn Bastar. Sukma is among the seven worst Maoist-affected district in the conflict zone of Bastar.