Maoists set free Odisha legislator Jhina Hikaka

Bhubaneswar, April 26 (IANS) Maoists Thursday released Odisha legislator Jhina Hikaka in Koraput district after holding him captive for more than a month.

TV visuals showed Hikaka, looking healthy and relieved, walking into a crowd of people, accompanied by his wife.

"We're glad that he is safe and unharmed," Baijayant Panda, an MP of Hikaka's party Biju Janata Dal (BJD), told reporters.

The left-wing extremists, who kidnapped the 37-year-old from Laxmipur in Koraput, over 500 km from here, March 24, had Wednesday announced that a people's court decided to release him after he apologised to the rebels and local villagers.

A Maoist leader calling herself 'Aruna', in an audio message aired by a local television channel here, Wednesday said the decision to release him was taken after he promised to resign from the assembly and the primary membership of the BJD.