WWF boss to meet kidnapped volunteers

Guwahati, Mar 11 : WWF-India boss Ravi Singh will meet the six-member volunteers’ team tomorrow at Kokrajhar, who were recently released by their abductors, before they finally go back to the wilds to work.

A source said Singh, who is the secretary general of WWF-India and also its CEO, would meet the volunteers who were abducted when they had gone to count tigers in the Ultapani area at Chirang reserve forest in Kokrajhar district.

The meeting will be held at Circuit House, Kokrajhar, where he will also meet BTC officials to thank them for their help.

“It is more of a thanksgiving gesture,” the source said.

The interaction with the BTC officials could also result in new areas of co-operation with the organisation.

The source said the BTC officials would also be interested in meeting the young volunteers, who were working in their area, before they were abducted.

Following the release of the volunteers, the conservation organisation is planning to start some pioneering initiative in the BTC area.

While three boys — Syed Naushad Zaman, Gautam Kishore Sarma and Pranjal Kumar Saikia — were released on February 17, the girls —Tarali Goswami, Shrabana Goswami and Pallabi Chakrabarty — were released on February 8.

The meeting with Singh will encourage the volunteers to keep up their work despite having faced rough times.

“All of them are raring to go back to the wilds. They are still at Tezpur analysing the data, which they had collected before they were kidnapped,” the source said.

The next probable places where the volunteers could be going are Nameri in Sonitpur district and Pakke in Arunachal Pradesh.

The organisation has already made it clear that it would not give up its work as it was involved in a national project on tiger estimation.

The source said the volunteers could be back to the forest in a week’s time.

“There could be better security provided by the park where the volunteers would be going,” the source said.