GUWAHATI: Investigation into the kidnapping of three ONGC employees at Lakuwa in Charaideo district in upper Assam in the wee hours of Tuesday has revealed the involvement of the banned militant outfit, the United Liberation Front of Assam-Independent (Ufa-I), said the special director general of police, G P Singh, on Thursday.
“Ulfa-I’s involvement has come to light in the abduction case. We have already identified the cadres involved. Moreover, the involvement of overground members of the group has also been found. We have already arrested one overground member,” he said.
He also informed that police have picked up at least 30 people for allegedly conspiring to kidnap the worker. “All of them are being interrogated now,” the officer added.
Talking about the motive behind the kidnapping, he said, “The kidnapping was done either for ransom or with an attempt to create instability in the state. But, we will not let this happen. The investigation and search operations are on.”
The district superintendent of police, S Mishra, said all efforts are on to rescue the trio.
Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Wednesday directed the chief secretary, Jishnu Baruah, and the director general of police, Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, to take all steps to rescue the victims. Thereafter, Singh visited Lakuwa on Thursday.
The employees, Mohini Mohan Gogoi, Alakesh Saikia and Ritul Saikia, were abducted by a group of five armed men, suspected to be Ulfa-I cadres, at around 1.30 am on Wednesday from a rig site at the Lakuwa oil field. The armed men took the employees in the company’s ambulance towards the Assam-Nagaland border.
However, no rebel outfits have claimed responsibility for the abduction yet.
The family members of the abducted employees have requested the outfit members to release them immediately. “I request them to release my son. My son has not done anything. Why did they kidnap the three, please release them,” they said.
The incident happened just after four months of the last kidnapping incident. On December 21 last year, Ulfa (I) had abducted two employees of Quippo Oil, drilling superintendent Pranab Kumar Gogoi and radio operator Ram Kumar from Arunachal Pradesh. They were released on April 3.