TURA: A local trader dealing in second hand foreign goods who was abducted from Baghmara in South Garo Hills district by Bangladeshi dacoits last week has escaped and returned to India on Sunday.
Trader Damian T Sangma, whose business is importing second hand foreign clothes into India from Bangladesh for sale in the local markets’ was abducted by a group of foreign nationals who crossed over the international border in the dead of night, last week.
The manner in which the criminals were able to evade the ‘alert’ BSF personnel on duty at the border to not only enter India but also manage to sneak back with a kidnapped man has cast doubts on the performance of the border sentinels.
The criminal gang entered the home of Damian Sangma located at Jongkol on the outskirts of Baghmara town and managed to take him captive.
He was taken across and held captive in a house in a border village while the criminals demanded ransom for his safe release.
In a spin of luck, the captive trader managed to break free early Sunday by taking advantage of the sleeping guards and succeeded in locating a patrol party of Bangladesh Border Guards (BBG) inside that country.
He narrated his tale of woe to the security force which in turn alerted the BSF and safely handed him over to the Indian side the same day.
Unaware of his safe return to India, the criminal gang pursued on their demand for ransom and dispatched one of their Indian collaborators to collect the ransom money when he was picked up by waiting police personnel from Baghmara.
The gang had initially demanded fifty thousand but scaled it down to ten thousand rupees.
The arrested gang member has revealed to police that they keep a watch on the patrol duty of the BSF and look for isolated border crossings and areas where the fencing is either damaged or absent before crossing to and fro to commit crime.