The four Bihar policemen held hostage were disarmed and blindfolded and taken to a camp where they were kept segregated. Lucas Tete's death was not revealed to them.
The four Bihar policemen held hostage by Maoists were first disarmed and blindfolded and then taken to a camp where they were kept segregated and the killing of one of them was also not revealed to the other three captives.
The Maoists who kept the cops in captivity in an undisclosed location in the jungles also hardly talked in front of the hostages and they mostly whispered and talked in "code language", one of the released policemen said.
Three policemen who were abducted along with slain Bihar Military Police(BMP) assistant sub-inspector Lucas Tete at Lakhisarai district, about 165km from Patna, after a bloody encounter on August 29 were released today without any physical harm. The encounter had left seven policemen dead.
Narrating the ordeal of the hostages to reporters at a police station in Lakhisarai shortly after being freed, BMP havaldar Ehshan Khan said following their capture from the Kajra forests they were blindfolded and kept segregated at the camp.
"Initially, I was apprehensive about my fate and that of my fellow policemen, but the Maoists behaved well with us and assured us that no harm will be done to us," the havaldar, whose home is in Ranchi, said.
What Khan and sub-inspectors Rupesh Kumar and Abhay Prasad Yadav however did not know till this morning was that they were kept in the dark about Tete's killing and that his body was dumped on a road on Friday last. The Maoists revealed the killing to them only this morning.
The three men were ironically released in the same area where Tete's bullet-ridden body was found.
"It saddened us and we prayed for peace of his soul," Khan said.
He was, however, determined to carry on with police work despite the trauma his family went through during his captivity.
"I have resolved to carry on with my service as a duty-bound policeman," he said.
Rupesh said the Maoists did not talk in front of the captives. "They didn't talk in front of us. They hardly talked and mostly whispered and talked in code language," he added.
"We were blindfolded and our hands and legs were tied," Rupesh said.
Rupesh said the Maoists told them that the captives were being released solely on the pleas of family members and not due to any government or police pressure.
"We were being told since the last two days that we will be released. But they used to change their plans at the last moment," he added.
Recalling the August 29 encounter, Rupesh said the policemen were attacked with automatic weapons and assault rifles including AK-47s and Light Machine Guns.
"They were at a higher position than us. Otherwise, the situation would have been different," he said.
Rupesh said the abducted men were not tortured by them and the Maoists treated them well.
"Our voice was recorded. They weren't straightforward in their talks. We never heard what they were talking over phone. I was cut off from the world since the last nine days. Neither a telephone nor a newspaper was available to me in the jungles," he said, adding both his phones were seized.
Rupesh said the rebels seized his uniform and gave one of their dresses to him.
"All four of us were together for 2-3 days in the beginning," he said.
Rupesh also said that the captives were kept separately owing to increasing police pressure.
About the Maoists not telling the captives about Tete's killing, Rupesh said he was under the impression that he was released since he was a tribal.
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