TURA: A Central government official travelling from remote Rongara village to district headquarters Baghmara in South Garo Hills District has been taken hostage by an armed group on Thursday morning.
The abduction comes a day after a State government forester was taken away by an unidentified group of men from the forest beat check gate at Khera on the Williamnagar-Songsak road. His whereabouts remain unknown.
The Central official Bikash Singh had boarded a Sumo leaving Rongara for Baghmara during the early part of Thursday morning.
Halfway through the journey they had just crossed Panda reserve forest, a midpoint between Rongara and Baghmara, at around 8:30 am when two men in camouflage and carrying arms emerged from the undergrowth and ordered the driver to halt.
All twelve passengers were ordered out of the vehicle and made to stand in a line on the road after which the armed men singled out Singh and a cloth merchant identified as Kamal Saha. They took the two men captive and allowed the rest of the passengers to board the vehicle and leave for Baghmara.
The identity of the kidnappers remains a mystery although police have not ruled out involvement of either the GNLA or ASAK or petty criminals in the daring abduction.
The remoteness of the Baghmara-Rongara route which has a large reserve forest at Panda and is close to the border with Bangladesh has been an idle operating ground for both militants and criminals alike.
On March 10 this year, heavily armed GNLA militants believed to number over three dozen ambushed a police vehicle coming from Rongara towards Baghmara.
Four police personnel, including a police sub-inspector, had lost their lives in that ambush.
