Govt to release Maoist leader
Gupta tells Maoists to reciprocate as well

BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, Oct. 11: In a bid to facilitate the talks for the peaceful solution of the Maoist insurgency, the government has decided to release Matrika Yadav, one of the leading Maoist leaders who has been in prison since last year. Yadav is one of the Maoists’ top brass, whose release was being repeatedly demanded by the Maoists for maintaining the spirit of the talks. "Yadav will be released as soon as the government furnishes certain legal procedures," Minister for Information and Communications Jaya Prakash Prasad Gupta told the press here this afternoon. Yadav was arrested on the charge of setting fire to a police station last year.

In the weekly press meet held today, Minister Gupta, who is also the government Spokesman, asked the Maoists to become equally responsible for maintaining the atmosphere for the talks by ending all kinds of violent and forceful activities and also by releasing the people kidnapped and held hostage by them.

"The government has fulfilled almost all the preconditions set by the Maoists for maintaining the environment for the talks, but it is the Maoists who have not yet released or informed the whereabouts of those people and police personnel who they have kidnapped," Gupta said.

Minister Gupta said, "The Maoists have not yet released or informed the whereabouts of 124 kidnapped people and 24 police personnel taken hostage by them."

The Maoists had kidnapped 71 police in the month of July this year alone. But only 47 of them have been released while the 24 are still being held by them.

Minister Gupta also said that the government was fully open-minded while facilitating the atmosphere of talks and that it wanted to solve the insurgency through peaceful negotiations without any wastage of time.

"We are always ready for the third round of talks with the Maoists. And this time we are waiting for the Maoists’ response for the place and date of the talks," Gupta said.

As to when would the third round of talks would be held, Minister Gupta said that, it depended on the Maoists’ willingness for talks.

Meanwhile, Minister for Agriculture and Cooperatives Mahesh Acharya who is one of the members of the government-formed committee for the talks with Maoists, said that he is hopeful that the talks would be held before Dashain.

After the third round of the all-party meet, held the other day at Singhadurbar Secretariat, the government has once again got the mandate from all the parliamentary parties to hold talks without violating the norms and values of the present Constitution, Acharya said.

Minister Gupta also seconded this and said, "We hope that the Maoists will be more specific and clear in their political demands at a time when we have already accepted their other demands for social and economic reforms," he said.

In their 23-point demands under three headings, the Maoists have been demanding the abrogation of the present constitution, establishment and institutionalization of a republican system of government, and formation of an all-party government under political demands.

But the government has categorically rejected these demands and for other demands related to social and economic changes in the country, it has showed its consent.

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