In a major breakthrough in the Orissa hostage crisis, the Maoists on Sunday released Claudio Colangelo, one of the two Italian tourists they were holding hostage, to a group of journalists at an undisclosed location on the borders of Ganjam and Kandhamal districts, 300 km from the state capital.
The other kidnapped Italian, Basusco Paolo, is still in Maoist captivity, as is Biju Janata Dal MLA Jhina Hikaka, abducted early Saturday morning.
“It was a frightening experience,” Mr Colangelo told reporters after his release, adding that while he would still “love to come back” to India, “certainly I will not step into Maoist territory”. The Italian was reportedly unwell while in captivity, which may have prompted the Naxalites to release him. Mr Colangelo is now eager to go back to Italy swiftly.
Top Naxal leader Sabyasachi Panda described the release as a “goodwill gesture”, saying the Maoists wanted to see what steps the state government took to fulfil their demands to “test its sincerity” before a decision on the other Italian.
Sources in the Union home ministry said the Intelligence Bureau warned in a situation report Sunday that the threat to the kidnapped MLA’s life was “very high”, and there was a “strong possibility” he could be killed due to internal rivalry between two Maoist factions. The IB said a dialogue should be resumed with the Naxals immediately.
“We shared this information with the state government and urged them to immediately engage (the Maoists) in a dialogue,” a top MHA official said. The Centre, which kept its forces on high alert but suspended armed action for now, told Orissa it would stand by the state government’s negotiations with Maoists, particularly on contentious issues.
In Bhubaneswar, officials said Mr Claudio will be handed over to Italian consul-general Joel Nechior, camping there since last Monday. No state official was ready to talk about the hostage’s release, and sources said the government was deliberately keeping quiet as it did not want to trigger any controversy as two persons were still in Maoist hands.
State government sources said resumption of talks on Monday looked unlikely as the Maoists were yet to name new interlocutors as suggested by chief minister Naveen Patnaik. The earlier interlocutors, B.D. Sharma and Dandapani Mohanty, had suspended the talks on Saturday citing the ceasefire violation by the Maoists.