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          Raipur, April 22  Chhattisgarh police were Sunday yet to   find a clue about Sukma district collector Alex Paul Menon, a day after he was   abducted from a forested area at gun-point by Maoists while he was interacting   with tribal farmers about their problems.
 |  Police officials posted in Sukma district searched certain parts of the forest   area adjoining Andhra Pradesh in the early hours of Sunday to rescue the   abducted 32-year-old collector.
 "But he is so far completely traceless,   we have no idea at which part of their hideouts the rebels have kept him   hostage," officials here at the police headquarters told IANS.
 
 A source   added that the state government and the police department were eagerly waiting   for a message or demands from the Maoists to release the young Indian   Administrative Services (IAS) officer.
 
 Maoists clad in tribal dresses   Saturday evening abducted the IAS officer from the 2006 batch in full public   view. They killed his two guards when they resisted the abduction.
 
 Menon,   who hails from Tamil Nadu, was taken hostage from a forested area Manjhipara,   around 500 km south of Raipur, in the first ever abduction of any IAS officer in   the mineral-rich state since Maoist insurgency broke out in the late   1980s.
 
 Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, who has been heading a   BJP government in the state since December 2003, and the opposition Congress   have appealed to the Maoists to release the district collector   immediately.
 
 Menon's wife Asha also made a fresh appeal Sunday to the   Maoists through local news channels to release her husband as he is suffering   from asthma and not carrying medicines with him.
 
 
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