Abducted Sukma Collector Alex Paul Menon would be released at around noon on Thursday, after spending nearly two weeks in Maoist captivity.

B D Sharma and Professor G Hargopal, who represented the Maoists in the talks with the Chhattisgarh government for the 32-year-old IAS officer's release, left for Tadmetla on Thursday morning to receive Menon, who was abducted on April 21 while touring a village.

Sharma, a former bureaucrat, had earlier said he had got a message that Maoists would release Menon at Tadmetla, a rebel-dominated forested area in Sukma district, on May 3.

Sharma had also said the state government would have to understand certain issues (in the wake of abduction). One of the questions was ownership of minerals and other resources of Bastar region, claimed by both the state as well as the local tribals, he said.
 

Under the pact, government has agreed to set up a committee headed by Nirmala Buch, one of the two government mediators, to review the cases of all prisoners languishing in Chhattisgarh jails, including those demanded by the Maoists.