Suspected Ulfa-I rebels kidnap Tinsukia plant manager

Dibrugarh: Suspected Ulfa-I militants kidnapped the manager of a local stone-crushing plant from the 10th Mile area of Jagun in Tinsukia district Wednesday morning. The incident took place at 10 am when the plant had just opened.

According to police, a five-member armed group, suspected to be Ulfa-I cadres, arrived at the plant and demanded that Prakash Chetry, the manager, contact owner Krishna Chetry. Upon his arrival, both men were forced at gunpoint to board Krishna's SUV. The militants instructed him to drive, threatening violence if he refused. The group then ordered him to drive approximately 30 km to the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border near Wara village.

In a turn of events, after reaching the designated location, the militants allowed Krishna to return alone with his vehicle, but they took Prakash with them into the dense Tinkupani Reserve Forest, which is a known transit corridor for northeast militant groups like the Ulfa-I and the NSCN to shuffle between Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Myanmar.

"We suspect this is a ransom-motivated kidnapping. The release of Krishna while retaining his manager as collateral suggests a financial motive behind the incident," a senior police officer said.

Krishna, who is a prominent businessman from Jagun, had reportedly been receiving extortion threats from the Ulfa-I for quite sometime. Due to the seriousness of the threats, the police even provided him with a Personal Security Officer (PSO) for the past 18 months. However, the PSO was recently withdrawn after the threat perception was deemed to have diminished.

Meanwhile, the police, Army, and the Assam Rifles have launched a joint search and combing operation in the Tinkupani Reserve Forest where visibility is limited. The thick forest canopy poses significant challenges for aerial surveillance, too, making it difficult for even helicopters and drones to maintain a watchful eye.