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500 people on way to PM Modi's meet taken hostage by maoists in Dantewada: Sources

By FnF Correspondent | PUBLISHED: 09, May 2015, 11:43 am IST | UPDATED: 09, May 2015, 15:38 pm IST

500 people on way to PM Modi's meet taken hostage by maoists in Dantewada: Sources

Raipur: Around 500 residents of Marenga village, some 150 km from Dantewada where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is attending an event, have been prevented from leaving the village, eyewitnesses said, but it was not immediately clear whether this was a hostage situation.

Many residents of the village are engaged in constructing a samll bridge in the area.

Marenga is 350 km from Chhattisgarh capital Raipur.

"This is a cowardly act. The government will never bow to Maoists," Srichand Sundrani, BJP spokesperson in Chhattisgarh was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Officially, the police denied that the abduction was related to the Prime Minister's visit.

SRP Kalluri, Inspector General of Bastar Range, said the Maoists had abducted half-a-dozen laborers from a village, Marenga, in Sukma district yesterday in a bid to stop to development work in the area. The laborers were employed in the construction of a nearby bridge.

The villagers had gone to negotiate their release and were subsequently taken hostage.

Mr Modi will be the first Prime Minister after Rajiv Gandhi to visit Dantewada to inaugurate development projects. He will inaugurate two projects worth a total of Rs. 24,000 crore - a steel plant in Dantewada's Dilmili village and the second phase of a 140 km railway line from Raoghat to Jagdalpur.

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