Ghanti Prasad addressing a convention in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, July 17: Top Maoist leader Ghanti Prasad today accused the Orissa government of backtracking on the February agreement with the Maoist-chosen interlocutors, saying that it had failed to release innocent tribals languishing in state jails.

“According to the agreement, the state government must release the poor tribals who were falsely branded as Maoists. All claims made by state government of acting on the agreement is merely an eye-wash,” said Prasad, while addressing a convention on the release of political prisoners on Sunday at Kasturba Nari Mahal.

He also asked the government to stick to the agreement and honour Adivasis who were waging war for the development of their areas. “The Maoists are only putting up resistance against state-funded violence and revolutionary violence mitigates violence of the government against the weaker people,” he added.

Prasad also asserted that the state violence would have been 1,000 times more had revolutionary violence not Sbeen there.

The state government had promised to act upon the 14-point agreement that had paved the way for release of abducted Malkangiri collector R. Vineel Krishna and junior engineer Pabitra Majhi. According to the accord, the government also released Ghanti Prasad and four other Maoists. According to Prasad, the crucial part of the agreement was to release nearly 600 prisoners who were unable to obtain bail and were languishing in different jails.

Prasad also slammed the Naveen Patnaik government for using the media as a tool to portray the Maoist movement as anti-people and anti-development. “Maoists are not opposed to any kind of developmental work, but at the same time they will also not support the imperial model of development,” he added.