Jamshedpur: Thirty teams of security personnel comprising CRPF, Jharkhand Jaguar (JJ) and district police are conducting a combined search operation in different parts of West Singhbhum district to find two men from Odisha who had gone missing from Gudri block on Dec 9.
"The forces are scouring the remote areas of Saranda forest across three Naxal-affected police station regions of Gudri, Goilkera and Anandpur to trace the missing individuals," West Singhbhum SP Ashutosh Shekhar said.
Without going into the specific details, the SP confirmed that teams are thoroughly searching the vast expanse of the dense forest to locate Sheikh Nazir (28) and Sheikh Shahdil (25). The SP added that police are interrogating three other individuals who had accompanied the missing men to Goilkera, to understand the chronology of events. "The search operation focuses on locations identified by the three individuals, while authorities continue to gather additional case-related information from them," the SP stated.
It must be mentioned that the three individuals being questioned by the police had reportedly travelled with the missing men to an undisclosed destination in Gudri block on Dec 9. The authorities have, however, decided to withhold the identities of the three.
According to the missing report filed with West Singhbhum police on Dec 12 by the families of the missing men, all five men, residents of Rairangpur in Mayurbhanj of Odisha, were travelling in a car. They were intercepted by villagers along Goilkera-Gudri police station limits and were forcibly taken into the forest, the families alleged.
The villagers, suspicious of their travel motive, bound all five individuals with rope and took them into the forest for questioning. However, three persons managed to escape. Nazir and Shahdil are feared to have been killed by the villagers.
Police sources involved in the investigation revealed that the three youths have been providing inconsistent accounts of the incident. "We will cross-examine their statements to uncover the truth," a source stated.