Travelers Taken Hostage for Communist Lecture

(Hyderabad, India) In what has to be one of the screwiest political rallies ever organized, Maoist guerillas abducted 500 people from cars, trucks and buses and made them sit and listen during a torch-lit, hour-long midnight session of political speeches in the middle of a highway.

From TelegraphIndia.com:

An embarrassed police today explained that the rebels, old hands at organising village meetings in the dead of the night, probably thought this was the only way they could get an urban audience.

Some 50 CPI (Maoist) guerrillas in battle fatigues stopped about 10 buses, 100 lorries and 15 cars on the Marherla-Markapur-Hyderabad state highway near Endrapalli village, 360 km southeast of Hyderabad, in Prakasham district. [ed. note: CPI stands for the Communist Party of India.]

They left the women, children and elderly alone but ordered all the able-bodied males out of their vehicles. The captives were made to walk for about a kilometre along the highway to a point close to the village.

Most people made the walk because the commies deflated the tires on the vehicles of those that refused to obey. At the 'meeting' in the middle of the highway, the hostages were subjected to a political harangue, telling them that the current "fascist" government was brutalizing and repressing them. Of course, they probably would already know that if it were true. Fifteen guerillas conducted the 'meeting' from a "makeshift dais decked with banners and lighted torches." Another 40 armed communists kept guard.

If the Maoists were looking for converts to communism, taking people hostage in the middle of the night while scaring the daylights out of them probably has a low success rate. Also, I'm convinced that the captives likely didn't appreciate that their travels were interrupted by several hours.

Nevertheless, when it was over, each hostage was given sweets, a red flag and a copy of the latest edition of the rebels' magazine.

"They even smiled at us and cheered us on our way," said Sugunavati, a passenger on the Ongole-Hyderabad bus, at Imliban bus depot.

Interestingly, the practice of holding people captive for hours to be crammed with political propaganda isn't new. It's a weathered and common tactic. For example, in the United States, it's generally recognized as an essential element of the California public school curricula.