Buddha Describes Swap with Maoist as Exceptional, Humanitarian
Two days after release of Atindranath Dutta by Maoists in exchange for bail to women arrested on charge of being rebel sympathisers, West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has described the decision of swap as an “exceptional decision taken on humanitarian grounds”.
Terming the decision as exceptional, the chief minister said in New Delhi that the government has not surrendered to the Maoists.
“We have to be careful in future in dealing with the Maoists to see that such a situation does not arise again,” he said.
Bhattacharjee said that he called on Home Minister P Chidambaram and was assured of all assistance in handling the Maoist menace in the state’s Lalgarh region.
He gave aforementioned statements while responding to media’s queries on the swap with Maoists o free abducted police officer Atindranath Dutta.
Dutta was freed on Thursday evening, almost three days after he was abducted by the leftwing ultras, after 14 tribal women who had been in jail for about one-and-a-half months on charges of Maoist activities were bailed out. This was one of the conditions laid down by the rebels.
Maoists released Dutta in full media glare and with a poster on his dress describing him as a Prisoner of War.
