Rebels abduct chief engineer

Assam development projects in peril

UDLA camps being burnt by police at Ghutghuti in Hailakandi district on the Assam-Mizoram border. Picture by Satananda Bhattacharjee Silchar, May 12 : Rebels dealt yet another blow to infrastructure development projects in south Assam when they abducted the chief engineer of a reputed Guwahati-based firm and his driver from Hailakandi district last evening. Kankan Gogoi, 54, and the driver of his Bolero jeep, Prafulla Nath, 29, were abducted from Vaicherra hamlet in Katlicherra block on the Assam-Mizoram border despite an elaborate police drive in the area to check the depredations of a tribal militant outfit. The abduction of the senior official of Sweeti Real Estates Private Limited, an infrastructure development company engaged in a national highway project, comes amid the threat of pullout by four construction firms from the East-West corridor project in North Cachar Hills district because of militancy. The threat has put a serious question mark on the completion of the national project. Gogoi’s abduction has opened up a new front in south Assam, compounding the government’s concern about carrying out infra-structure development in xfour of the state’s most under-developed districts. Police sources today said Gogoi had gone to Vaicherra to check the progress of the construction of a road on National Highway 154 between Dhaleswari in Hailakandi district and Bairabhi in Kolosib district of Mizoram. The chief engineer and his driver were last seen being escorted through a jungle alley towards a high hill en route to the inter-state boundary by local residents, they added. Police sources in Hailakandi town said Assam police and the CRPF launched a rescue mission in the jungles along the Assam-Mizoram boundary early this morning. The United Democratic Liberation Army, a motley gang of Reang tribals and local Muslims, led by Dhanyaram Reang, is suspected to be behind the abduction. The police are probing whether the owner of the firm, Bhagya Kalita, a Guwahati-based entrepreneur who was in Hailakandi yesterday to supervise the progress of the highway project, was the real target of the abductors. The sources said security could not be stepped up in the area yesterday as Kalita and Gogoi’s plans had not been made known to them. An alert has been sounded in Hailakandi following yesterday’s abduction. The incident comes within a week of the security forces rescuing three other employees of the same firm, who had been abducted on April 22, from a hideout of the United Democratic Liberation Army near Vaicherra after an exchange of fire on May 4. The militants, however, managed to escape.  In the follow-up operations, the police located and destroyed at least three of the gang’s camps at Ghutghuti in Hailakandi district on the Assam-Mizoram border and arrested two of its cadres, identified as Islam Uddin and Moinul Haque. The gang is said to have about 35 active cadres who are mainly involved in abduction and extortion. It has abducted at least eight persons from Katlicherra block since January this year.