Abduction cases on rise in Garo hills

From A Correspondent

Shillong, July 10: After a brief lull, cases of abduction in Garo Hills have again gone up. Two cases of kidpping were reported in the last three weeks.

A 70-year-old father of a Catholic priest at Imbloka village of Rongara in South Garo Hills was kidpped on June 15. He was subsequently released on July 5 after crimils received the ransom money.

More recently, on July 8, a group of unidentified gunmen abducted a pharmacist, Biplab Dhar (40) from Dumnikura village, near Sibbari in South Garo hills.

Till filing of this report the fate of the pharmacist is not known.

In the last few months after a large number of Garo tiol Liberation Army (GNLA) and cadres of other outfits surrendered to the police, cases of crimes including abduction saw a drastic dip.

According to police, in both the cases they suspect the involvement of Bangladeshi tiols assisted by Indian tiols. In the case of the abduction of the father of a Catholic priest, it was reported that miscreants took him into neighbouring Bangladesh.

It may be mentioned that there are more than 100 gaps in the 443-kilometer-long Indo-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya. Apart from those, there is a stretch of 93 kilometres of unfenced border.

Recently, the BSF had sought co-operation from the State and Central government security agencies to check illegal immigration and movement of crimils through these porous borders.