Maoists flee after releasing 100 school children they held hostage, say reports

According to emerging reports, Maoists who had taken hundred of school children hostage in a village in Jharkhand have freed the captives and fled away.

Children were taken hostage in Kudumkela village of Gumla district in Jharkhand.

Senior journalist Rahul Pandita quoted police on Twitter saying, "A senior police officer has confirmed Jharkhand hostage situation.The village is in Simdega district."

However, so far there is no clarity on why the children were taken hostage.

Confirmed: A squad of 12 armed Maoists have taken school children hostage in Kudumkela village in Jharkhand's Gumla district #Breaking

— Rahul Pandita (@rahulpandita) January 23, 2015

Last year, on December 1, using human shields, Maoists had unleashed a major attack killing 14 CRPF personnel, including two officers, and injuring 12 others in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh.

Recently, rare video footage has been recovered by police. It shows Maoists conducting a 'commando-style' training to gun down helicopters used to ferry security personnel and VIPs, in Chhattisgarh's worst insurgency-hit Bastar region.

The video of the outlawed CPI (Maoist) at a training camp apparently in forests of Sukma - south Bastar adjoining Andhra Pradesh and Odisha - shows a group of 15-20 guerrilla cadres practising to bring down a chopper by using its 'dummy' with LMGs (light machine guns) and small weapons.

According to information obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), in the past 10 years, the Communist Party of India (Maoists) has organised as many as 489 training camps for more than 40,000 cadres who have been taught about the use of sophisticated weapons and guerrilla warfare.