By IANS
Guwahati : Two senior officials of the Cement Corporation of India (CCI) and a government engineer were kidnapped Sunday by armed militants in separate incidents in Assam, officials said.
A police spokesman said a group of armed militants dressed in Border Security Force (BSF) uniforms late Sunday entered the CCI headquarters at Bokajan, about 280 km east of Assam’s main city of Guwahati.
“The security guards at the CCI mistook the militants for BSF troopers and allowed them entry into the campus,” a senior police official told IANS by telephone.
The rebels, suspected to be from the outlawed Karbi National Liberation Front (KNLF), abducted three officials – K. Jha, mines manager, Madan Kumar Bora, CCI’s security officer, and a security guard on duty.
“The militants later released the security guard but took away the two officials to some unknown destination. The rebels also took away two weapons from the security personnel,” the police official said.
Police and paramilitary troopers have since begun a hunt to rescue the two officials.
In another incident, some unidentified captors took hostage an engineer of the Public Works Department (PWD), Ajay Deka, from Guwahati.
“Deka’s family received a phone call from someone saying he was in their custody and would be released if they were paid unspecified ransom money,” a city police official said.
Details of the abduction were not immediately known. The three kidnappings Sunday came three days after abducted Food Corporation of India executive director P.C. Ram was killed in crossfire. Militants of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) had kidnapped Ram April 17 from Guwahati.
The KNLF and the ULFA are believed to have close ties and operate in tandem in parts of eastern Assam.