Rebels demand ransom for release of 11 abducted non-tribals

PTI
Aizawl, October 12

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]ripura’s NLFT rebels and a group of Bru militants who allegedly abducted 11 non-tribals from Mamit district on the Mizoram-Bangladesh-Tripura border, have demanded Rs 30 lakh ransom for the release of their captives.
Mamit district Superintendent of Police C Lalnunmawia said that the abductors, now suspected to be inside Bangladesh jungles, telephoned the relatives of the hostages in Patharkandi that they should pay Rs 30 lakh for the release of the 11 people.
“It seems the militants thought the victims to be contractors, but later found out that they were manual labourers working under local small contractors,” he said.
Eleven non-tribals were abducted by suspected NLFT and Bru militants combine from a place near Rajiv Nagar village on Mizoram-Bangladesh-Tripura border in Mamit district on Friday night, the SP said.
Lalnunmawia said that 12 militants, ten of them armed and wearing camouflages, abducted a total of 15 people from Patharkandi in Assam’s Karimganj district at around 9:30 PM on Friday night.The abducted persons were manual workers engaged in the construction of RMSA school building at West Phulpui village, he said, adding that four people belonging to Chakma community were released by the kidnappers later.
The place of abduction is around three kilometres from the Zozampui camp where state armed police personnel were deployed in a makeshift border outpost.
He said that a massive combing operation was launched by the state police but the abductors together with the victims had crossed the Bangladesh border taking advantage of the darkness and the thick forests.
A senior police official said this is the seventh recent case of kidnapping by the combined force of the Bru Development Front of Mizoram (BDFM) and Tripura’s NLFT militants from Mizoram.