GUWAHATI: Four days after they were abducted by Ulfa-I, two of the three ONGC employees were rescued by security forces after an encounter from Mon district of Nagaland, near the India-Myanmar border, on Saturday, Assam DGP Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta said.
The rescued officials are Mohini Mohan Gogoi and Alakesh Saikia. The search for the third, Ritul Saikia, is underway, authorities said.
The rescue operation was jointly conducted by the Indian Army, Assam Rifles and Nagaland Police, with intelligence inputs from the Assam police. One AK-47 rifle was recovered from the site.
Assam DGP Mahanta said the “encounter” had started early Saturday morning in the forests of Mon district, near the international border.
However, Ulfa (I) said on Saturday it had released the three ONGC employees and left them “in the safe custody of the villagers of Tokok Singkhu in good health” fearing harm to their lives in the crossfire during the firefight with the Army, Assam Rifles and Nagaland Armed Police in Mon district.
Ulfa-I publicity wing member Rumul Asom issued a statement asking why the security forces had said that only two, Mohini Mohan Gogoi and Alakesh Saikia, and not all three abductees, had been rescued. “We fear that the third person (Ritul Saikia) might have been killed in firing by security forces or he might have been kept in hiding by the security forces with an ulterior motive,” Asom stated.
Mohini Mohan Gogoi, Ritul Saikia and Alakesh Saikia were abducted in the early hours of Wednesday by suspected Ulfa(I) cadres from the company’s rig site at Lakwa, in Sivasagar district.
GP Singh, special DGP (law and order), who is monitoring the probe as well as search operations, tweeted on Saturday, “When every available hand of @assampolice should be at beck & call of people of Assam to mitigate the hardships of 2nd wave of pandemic, misadventures of Ulfa has kept a large chunk of cops away from service to people of Assam. Abominable (sic).”
Sivasagar SP Amitava Sinha said 14 people had been arrested from multiple locations in Sivasagar and Charaideo districts for alleged links to the abduction carried out by the proscribed outfit.
An Assam police statement on Friday evening had said Ulfa-I was responsible for the abduction.
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