Gaya, July 5: Maoists today torched two buses belonging to Maharani Transport Company in Chakarbandha forests, a few kilometres from Magra from where the vehicles were hijacked yesterday.

Yesterday evening, the drivers and conductors were released by the rebels, who reportedly told them that their fight was not with them, but the owner of the buses.

The rebels made it clear that they were “unhappy” with the company owner for his failure in paying up “levy” and abiding by the rebel diktat.

On Saturday, Ravishankar Singh, alias Munna Singh, who joined office after a gap, opened the letter issued by rebels containing a seven-point chargesheet and ordering him to “mend his ways” by July 1, 2009, failing which military action (fauji karwai) would be initiated.

The notice (dated June 24, 2009) was delivered at his office a few days ago, but nobody opened it till yesterday when the boss finally joined office.

Though, contents of the notice written in Hindi were not made public, sources say that the chargesheet includes charges of non-payment of annual levy amounting to Rs 50,000 per annum, non-withdrawal of long-route buses from roads during Maoist bandhs, ill-treatment of staff, including drivers, and possession of illegal weapons.

The notice was prefaced by a brief history of the Left-wing movement, hailing the pro-people movement that had managed to restore what was rightfully the poor people’s right to them.

Gaya superintendent of police confirmed the incident and said that Singh had lodged a complaint with the police after the buses were hijacked.