Tinsukia: In yet another kidnapping, suspected cadres of the K-YA faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) have kidnapped a Gaon Burah (village headman) from Arunachal’s Longding district in the wee hours on Sunday.
The victim has been identified as Napho Boham of Lauksim village.
The development comes almost two months after NSCN (K-YA) allegedly kidnapped three workers engaged in the road construction work on the Pumao-Langkhow stretch in Longding district, and days after 120 gaon buras of Tirap and Longding districts extended their support to security forces to tackle the menace of NSCN insurgents operating across the two districts.
According to sources, a group of armed cadres sneaked into the Longding district from Mon district in neighbouring Nagaland on the intervening night of May 7 and 8 and abducted Boham at gunpoint. “The whereabouts of the victim are yet to be traced,” the source added.
Longding district shares its boundary with Nagaland, Assam and Myanmar and is often used as a transit route by various militant outfits to enter Assam as well as Tirap and Changlang districts of Arunachal Pradesh.
Sources said that security forces have launched a massive combing operation to secure the release of the victim.
“There are no reports of any extortion demand so far,” added sources.
In March, unidentified militants kidnapped the nephew of one Kaushal Sharma, who was engaged in the construction of the Miao-Vijaynagar road in Changlang district, underlining the increase in kidnapping incidents in a few districts of Arunachal Pradesh.
In both abduction cases along with several others, victims were mysteriously released a few days later.
Security agencies maintain that it is because of the efforts and heat of rescue operations launched to secure the release of the victims that the militant left the victims somewhere and fled away, denying reports of ransom being paid to secure any release, and leaving several questions unanswered.
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