Thaindian News

Ranchi, Oct 6 (IANS) A Jharkhand police officer, who had been abducted by Maoist guerrillas and was sought to be swapped for three of their leaders, including Kobad Ghandy, was found with his throat slit on the Ranchi-Jamshedpur highway Tuesday morning.
Francis Induwar, who worked as an intelligence official in the Special Branch, had been kidnapped five days ago.

The Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) left a pamphlet claiming the killing, a police official said. “Francis has been awarded death to protest the police repression,” stated the pamphlet by the outlawed group.

“The body of the official was found near Taimara valley situated on the Ranchi-Jamshedpur highway on Tuesday morning. The body has been identified and sent for postmortem. Maoists killed him by slitting his throat,” said R.K. Mallik, the deputy inspector general of police, Ranchi range.

“This is an act of cowardice of Maoist rebels who killed a police officer who was posted in the Specials Branch,” Mallik told IANS.

Indwar was abducted Sep 30 evening from the Hembrum market in Khuti district, about 65 km from here, where he had gone to collect information from a contact.

On Saturday, a person claiming to be ‘Samarji’, secretary of the Maoist South Chotanagpur Committee of Jharkhand, put forward the conditions for releasing Induwar.

“The abducted police inspector of intelligence department is in our possession. He is safe. He will be released after the arrested leaders - Kobad Ghandy, Chatradhar Mahto and Bhushan Yadav - are released,” local newspapers had quoted Samarji as saying.

“Do not torture relatives of Kundan Pahan and other people, otherwise we will abduct family members of government officials,” it went on to say.

Police suspect the role of the Kundan Pahan group in the killing. It is active in the border areas of Ranchi, Khuti and Jamshedpur.