Teenage rebel gives clues on teacher’s abduction
TURA: The twin arrests of GNLA cadres have helped East Garo Hills police solve a kidnapping case as well as seize extortion money.
The arrest of a teenage militant on Thursday night solved the mystery of the missing SSA school teacher. The 16-year-old boy told police that he guided the armed GNLA rebels to the teacher’s house at Nengsang Adugre village in the district on the night of November 4.
The Lower Primary School teacher, Rechard Stranger Sangma, was taken away at gunpoint from his house. Police’s search operation had yielded no result. The teenager is also from Nengsang Adugre and was arrested from the outskirts of Tura, where he had arrived two days ago, on Thursday night.
GNLA chief Sohan D. Shira had given the boy Rs 1 lakh in old currency notes for exchange and asked him to keep a watch on the outfit’s deserters in Williamnagar and Baghmara who recently surrendered to the government.
Tura police have recovered a substantial amount of the money. GNLA had maintained silence about the abduction.
East Garo Hills police was supposed to question the juvenile but would now have to wait longer after the teenager complained of fever and has been admitted in a hospital in Tura.
Meanwhile, another militant arrested from a different locality was found to possess Rs 84,000 collected as extortion from civilians in and around the town. He was arrested from outside the gate of Don Bosco College in Tura on the same day.
The cadre, identified as M. Sangma, was picked up based on intelligence inputs. When police searched his rented house at Wadanang, they found Rs 84,000 which had been extorted from a person in Tura town.