The Naveen Patnaik government on Monday accepted eight of the 14 demands Maoists made for the release of Malkangiri Collector R. Vineel Krishna and Junior Engineer Pabitra Majhi.
As the talks on the Maoists' demands remained inconclusive for the second day, the government said it was confident that the abducted officials would be released shortly. “We are confident that Mr. Krishna and Mr. Majhi will be released very soon,” Home Secretary U.N. Behera said at a press conference, in which government officials and the three mediators were present.
“The demands raised by the Maoists had been formulated into 14 issues, and eight of them had been resolved. The remaining six demands were partly discussed and will be discussed further during the negotiations with the mediators on Tuesday,” he said.
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The suspected Maoist, Ganti Prasadam, who was brought to Koraput from a jail in Andhra Pradesh on Sunday, was being taken to Bhubaneswar to take part in the negotiations, highly placed sources said.
Prasadam is in judicial custody, and a petition for his release, along with four other suspected Maoists, was filed in the Orissa High Court during the day.
“The 14 demands were put together with the help of the mediators on the basis of media reports, pamphlets and inputs collected by the negotiators,” Mr. Behera said.
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The mediators had assured the government that the officials abducted on Wednesday were safe.
The demands that were accepted include grant of land rights to tribal people in scheduled areas; minimum displacement of tribals while making space for industries and mining; and grant of the Scheduled Caste status to two communities.
As for the demand for the release of two suspected women Maoists jailed in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, Orissa agreed to write to the State governments urging them to take action.