Cop among 3 held in connection with abduction of ONGC staff in Assam

By Express News Service

GUWAHATI: An Assam Police constable was among three persons arrested on Monday for their alleged involvement in the abduction of three employees of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).Basanta Buragohain, a constable with the 25th AP (ONGC) Battalion, was arrested from his Sadiya residence in Tinsukia district.

The two other arrested persons were Biraj Chetia of Dibrugarh district and Rahul Mohan of Sivasagar district. Two other policemen  were absconding. All three of them were deployed at the ONGC’s  work-over-rig site in Sivasagar district from where the three employees were abducted by ULFA militants in the wee hours of Wednesday.

DGP Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta said the police would not spare anyone found involved in the case. He also said efforts were on to trace out and rescue the third abducted employee. Junior engineering assistant Alakesh Saikia and junior technician Mohini Mohan Gogoi were rescued by the security forces following a gunfight with the militants near Totokchingnyu village in Nagaland on Friday night. The fate of the third employee Ritul Saikia, a junior technician, is, however, still not known.

The ULFA had on Saturday claimed that the three employees were handed over to the villagers as the outfit was concerned about their safety amidst the gunfight. But the two rescued employees rubbished the ULFA’s narrative. Meanwhile, a massive search  operation is on for the missing third employee in Nagaland.