Police recover bodies of kidnapped youths in Bihar

Patna: Bihar Police have recovered the bodies of two youths who were reportedly kidnapped earlier this month, official sources said on Sunday.

The body of 20-year-old Kaushal Kumar, who went missing last week, was recovered on Sunday morning from a deserted bank of a river in Munger district, 150km from here, the sources said. Kaushal's family members found his body.

People on Sunday protested against police's failure to rescue Kaushal.

In a separate incident, the body of Arvind alias Akash, a Class X pupil, was recovered from a house in a village near Patna on Friday. Arvind was kidnapped on January 7. The victim's family received a ransom call from unknown abductors demanding Rs1 million (Dh94,000) for Arvind's safe release. Two people have been arrested in this regard.

Arms recovered from Maoist hideout

A huge cache of arms and ammunition has been recovered from a Maoist hideout in Bihar's Gaya district during a raid, police said on Sunday.

The hideout was located near a forest under Fatehpur block in Gaya, around 100km from here. However, no arrests were made.

The area, which is near the Jharkhand border, is considered to be a stronghold of the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist.

"During a combing operation, we recovered sophisticated arms and ammunition dumped by Maoists in their hideout," said a police official in Gaya. Last year, explosives were twice seized from Maoist hideouts in the area.