Maoists release abducted TRS leaders in Telangana

HYDERABAD: The six ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi leaders from Khammam district, kidnapped by Maoists on Wednesday, have been released.
According to reports reaching here, the six leaders have reached Pusuguppa village from where they were kidnapped. The TRS leaders Patel Venkateswarulu, Mane Ramakrishna, Santapuri Suresh, Jarandhan, Ramakrishna and Satyanarayana were local level functionaries of the ruling party in Telangana.
They were released by the Maoists near the Chattisgarh border in Khammam district of Telangana on Saturday morning. While it is not clear at this point whether their release followed an appeal by their families or because of some tacit understanding and negotiations between the state police and the Maoists.
The Maoists after kidnapping them had demanded an immediate halt to combing operations by the police in Khammam and Adilabad districts of Telangana abutting Chattisgarh and an end to 'fake encounters' warning the ruling TRS that for every Maoist killed in such an encounter, they would kill two ruling party leaders in Telangana.