Abduction of 18-year-old
STAFF CORRESPONDENT
SHILLONG, May 9: Phone calls intercepted by the security agencies clearly indicated that the intertiol gang operating from Bangladesh and India are involved in abducting the 18-year-old employee of a coal merchant operating in Nongjri belt of South West Khasi Hills district.
“They comprise of crimils led by a militant belonging to the crushed ASAK group and they are using the Bangladesh as well as Indian SIM cards to reach out to the coal merchant,” a well placed source told The Sentinel on Tuesday.
The 18-year-old, who hails from Bynther village, is a handyman of the excavator that was pressed into earth cutting works before he was picked up on April 26.
South West Khasi Hills Superintendent of Police (SP) Herbert G Lyngdoh said that the kidpped person has been taken to Bangladesh.
Lyngdoh himself joined the police operation team along the Indo-Bangladesh border to locate the probable hideouts of the crimils. The BSF had a flag meeting with the BBG last week to unearth the gang involved in abducting the teeger. They provided details of the incidents and the probable suspects hiding in Sumganj district of Bangladesh but to no avail so far.
The victim family has not received any monetary demands from the abductors, but the intercepted calls clearly indicated that the abductors made calls to the coal baron through the victim’s mobile phone as well as from a Bangladesh SIM card”, stated a source while confiding that the question of ransom has not been known till date.
While security agencies clearly stated that the boy was a victim of mistaken identity. However, one thing is clear that an organized gang is working to get ‘fast buck’ in the coal belts of south West Khasi Hills.
While it is well known that the stretch from Nongjri-Ranikor was vulnerable to robbery during the hey days of coal trade, the latest abduction was a surprise to law enforcing agencies. However, sources who are monitoring the latest developments said that they will not be surprised, if some of the surrendered cadres of the militant outfits are involved. An ASAK cadre is known to have mobilized a purported gang of ethnic people living along the Indo- Bangladesh border.