Maoists took us deep inside forests, says rescued porter

MUNGER: Nilendra Mandal (55), the porter on duty at the Masudan railway station, who was abducted on Tuesday-Wednesday midnight along with assistant station master (ASM) Mukesh Kumar and later released by the Maoists, on Thursday narrated the ordeal they had to face for 24 hours in Maoist captivity.“We were taken aback when a group of 12 armed Maoists, including three women, stormed into the ASM office around 11pm on Tuesday and held both of us hostage after snatching the telephone sets from the hands of the ASM. The Maoists encircled us and then sprinkled kerosene on the control panel and batteries before setting the entire office on fire. Both of us were taken out of the office and asked to either keep quiet or face dire consequences,” Mandal said.He added the Maoists asked the daily-wage workers sleeping on the floor of the platform to leave the station. “They then asked us to follow them on foot. We kept walking with the Maoists on a ‘kutcha’ road for almost three hours, braving extreme cold conditions and westerly winds. Our eyes were covered with a piece of cloth. When our eyes were opened, we found ourselves in deep forest,” Mandal said, adding they were offered ‘puri-sabji’ to eat. “We, however, refused to take food saying that we had already taken our meal at the station,” Mandal said. “Neither the ASM nor me could sleep even for a moment due to extreme cold and fear of being harmed by the Maoists,” he added. “Around 4pm on Wednesday, we were released. We had to walk for some distance and our eyes were covered with black piece of clothes up to Basauni village under Dharhara police station. The village was well known to us. We boarded a private bus there and came to Munger to meet our relatives in a locality under East Colony police station at Jamalpur. Our ordeal finally came to an end with the grace of God,” he said.