Within a fortnight of releasing two employees of a private oil exploration company, suspected ULFA militants kidnapped three employees of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) early on April 21 from an oil field in Lakwa of Assam’s Sivasagar district.
ONGC officials said that they strongly suspected the involvement of banned United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent) (ULFA-I) in the abduction.
In a series of tweets on April 21 morning, ONGC said the employees were driven away by “unknown armed miscreants” in a vehicle belonging to ONGC at gunpoint.
The vehicle was later found abandoned near the Nimonagarh jungles, close to the Assam-Nagaland border.
3 ONGC employees, 2 Junior Engineer Assistants (Production) & a Junior Technician (Production) have been abducted by unknown armed miscreants in the early hours of 21 April 2021. The abduction took place on a rig site of ONGC in Lakwa field of Sivasagar District.
— ONGC (@ONGC_) April 21, 2021
“All the three abducted are local residents of Assam,” Sivasagar SP Amitava Sinha said.
The Nagaland Police and the army deployed on the Assam-Nagaland border have been put on high alert.
“Nagaland’s Mon district is not far from the spot of the abduction and the car was found abandoned near the Nagaland border. So, police there have been alerted,” Sinha said.
In December last year, ULFA(I) and Myanmar-faction of NSCN(K) had abducted two employees of Quippo Oil and Gas Infrastructure Limited from Kumchaikha drilling site near Innao in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh.
They were released this month.