After spending five days in Maoist captivity in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, abducted CRPF trooper Rakeshwar Singh Manhas was released on Thursday at a jungle patch at a crowded ‘jan adalat’ here.
Manhas, a commando of CRPF’s CoBRA (Combined Battalion for Resolute Action), was held hostage by Maoists on April 3 after a deadly Naxalite ambush in Bijapur district that left 22 security personnel dead.
“On April 6 the CPI (Maoist) claimed that the missing CoBRA jawan was in their custody. Since then, efforts were on to bring him back safely,” Inspector General of Police (Bastar) Sundarraj P said in a Press release.
He confirmed that around 4:30 pm Manhas returned back safely to the Tarrem police station here along with the interlocutors who had gone to the jungle along with a team of local journalists to secure his release.
He was admitted to the Basaguda field hospital for intensive medical checkup.