AGARTALA: Even as security forces continued their combing operations to rescue three workers kidnapped on the India-Bangladesh border, police and BSF officials suspect the abductees might have been taken by terrorists to the neighbouring country as the crime spot was just on the border.

Tripura Police Additional Director General (Law and Order) Rajiv Singh said on Friday: “We are making all efforts to rescue the three workers who were engaged in fencing along the international border, apart from a small trader abducted earlier. We have requested the Assam and Mizoram authorities to search their areas to find out any terrorist hideout or any captive.”

A senior Border Security Force official said that they have approached Border Guards Bangladesh to search in their areas to locate the kidnapped workers.

supervisor Subhash Bhowmik, JCB driver Subal Debnath and worker Ganapati Tripura were kidnapped at gunpoint by suspected National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) militants from Ganganagar in eastern Tripura’s Dhalai district on December 7.

A huge contingent of security forces led by senior officials continued their combing operations to nab the tribal guerrillas and rescue the three persons.

Four people were arrested in connection with the two abduction cases.

The National Building Construction Corporation was given the task to put up barbed- wire fence along the international borders to check crimes and infiltration bids.

On November 27, 35-year-old Litan Nath, a small trader, was abducted at gunpoint by terrorists from Joyrampara, a remote village in northern Tripura along the Tripura-Mizoram interstate border.

The Central Reserve Police Force, Tripura State Rifles and the police are continuing with the search operations to rescue Nath.

Nath’s wife told the police that some heavily armed militants raided their house and looted jewellery, cash and abducted her husband.

The police said that the abductors also demanded Rs 1.5 lakh as ransom for the release of Nath.

Nath’s abduction was the first in Tripura in six years, as the terrorists had last kidnapped eight people in 2014.

Terrorism had devastated Tripura for over four decades until 2011-12 before terror activities were checked due to a series of holistic measures.
IANS