Raipur, Aug 31 (IANS) In a noble gesture, Chhattisgarh policemen donated blood to save the life of a Maoist who sustained a bullet injury in the state’s restive Bastar region, officials said Tuesday.

Madvi Mangu, 30, was among the two rebels captured Sunday after a gun battle in a forest in Bijapur, some 450 km south of capital Raipur.

‘The tribal militant had excess bleeding and was in a desperate need of B-positive blood and doctor said he would die if blood was not arranged urgently Sunday,’ Superintendent of Police (Bastar) P. Sundarraj told IANS.

‘Constables – Chaganlal Daharia and Hari Singh Thakur – posted at Jagdalpur town immediately agreed to donate blood and saved his life,’ he said.

‘It was a decision linked to someone’s life and I had to take it in a flash though he belonged to an insurgent group that butchered and massacred our colleagues in the past several years but I thought I should not inherit their (Maoists) culture based on brutality and inhumanity and donated blood,’ Daharia told IANS over phone from Jagdalpur.