Being held under 33 days long hostage of Maoists, facing a drastically hampered period, Odisha MLA Jhina Hikaka finally freed today at a village in Koraput.

“I am free now. I am in good health”, Hikaka said while interacting media and expressing his joy to be free from a long abduction.

Hikaka, in a green kurta and pajama, was released by rebels at Balipeta village in Maoist-affected Narayanpatna area, handed over to his wife, Kaushalya Majhi.

While asking about Maoist behavior towards him, he smiled and said, “I was treated quite well and not tortured,” but he had no idea that where he took and hostage. He said, Maoists had shifted him from one place to other, changing were as per their captivity.

Hikaka’s release is made without any harm at the same place where his abduction had made by the rebels, though today, he was believed to have been produced in a Maoist ‘praja’ (people’s) court which agreed to set him free on the contract of his approval to resign from the party.

Source says, the Maoist Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC) said that this release is held on basis of Hikaka’s written statement over resignation from the state Assembly and from the BJD and work for the people.

Hikaka’s abduction was held on 24 March of this year after two Italian nationals Claudio Colangelo and Paolo Bosusco had been kidnapped by the Odisha’s Maoist committee on March 14 in Kandhamal district.

However this Maoist hostage process has been starting from February 2011 while the Malkangiri district collector R Vineel Krishna was kidnapped. Recent kidnapping were made to pressure the state govt. for fulfilling their demand of release of 29 ultras that are in jail from more than two years.