ULFA(I) kidnapped the three ONGC employees : Assam police

Assam police on Friday said it has received specific information that the banned ULFA (Independent) was involved in the kidnapping of three ONGC employees from Sivasagar earlier this week and 14 linkmen and sympathisers of the outfit have been arrested so far in this connection.

The three men were whisked away in an ambulance, a top Assam police official said.

There is specific information that the kidnapping was carried out by ULFA(I) under the command of its self-styled major Ganesh Lahon @ Purna Lahon and his accomplices Aidyaman Asom @ Moniram Borgohain and Pradip Gogoi @ Akon, an Assam police release said.

All out efforts are on to rescue the kidnapped persons without causing any harm to them, it said.

The 14 arrested ULFA(I) linkmen and sympathizers had allegedly helped the banned outfit directly or indirectly.

Assam Special Director General of Police G P Singh, who is camping in Sivasagar since the kidnapping on Wednesday to supervise the rescue operations, said that an ambulance was used for taking away the three ONGC employees.

''Use of ambulance by ULFA for kidnapping the ONGC employees - especially during the pandemic, is reprehensible'', Singh tweeted.

Despite such ''inhuman act'' by ULFA ''We are not issuing instructions to police or security forces to routinely check ambulances lest precious lives are lost,'' he said.

Singh urged the civil society to ''consider raising their voices against such inhuman act by the ULFA''.

Superintendents of police of all the 10 upper Assam districts have been instructed to review the security arrangements of OIL and ONGC units under their jurisdiction, especially of those located in interior places.

Five suspected ULFA(I) militants kidnapped the three persons from a work over rig site (ROM-100 III) of ONGC located within Lakwa tea estate under Simaluguri police station of Sivsagar district around 1 a.m of April 21.

The militants came to the site and kidnapped the ONGC staff in the ambulance which was kept at the site and drove them to No 5 Bakupukhuri near Charaideo Tea Estate under Mathurapur police station.

From there two militants moved with the abducted persons towards the hills of Mon district of Nagaland, the police said.

The kidnapped persons are two junior technicians (production) - 35-year old Mohini Mohan Gogoi and 33-year old Ritul Saikia along with 28-year old junior engineering assistant (production) Alakesh Saikia.

The Assam police is carrying out a massive operations to nab the culprits and rescue the kidnapped persons, the release said.

Nagaland police and army/para military bases located in the area have also been alerted and efforts are on to trace the abducted.

This is the second incident of kidnapping by the ULFA(I) in four months.

Two employees of the Quippo Oil and Gas Infrastructure were abducted from Kumchaikha hydrocarbon drilling site in Arunachal Pradesh's Changlang district.

The two, drilling superintendent Pranab Kumar Gogoi and radio operator Ram Kumar were released separately in the first week of April after more than 100 days in captivity.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)