Seven traders abducted

TURA, JAN 16: Meghalaya police on Saturday launched an operation to track down the seven traders from Assam, abducted yesterday by suspected militant outfits in North Garo Hills. Police said that the traders were abducted yesterday around 4 pm, while they were returning form Dokhongsi weekly market, near Kharkutta.

The market in close to Assam’s Goalpara district, about 60 km from Resubelpara, the district headquarter of North Garo Hills.

The traders have been identified as – Tustu Paul, Manoranjan Sarkar, Putul Mukherjee, Piyush Biswas, Pradip Das, Bijoy Sarkar and Ganesh Basu. All of them hail from Dorenggre in Goalpara district.

“Two groups of traders were returning from Dokhongsi weekly market, when their vehicle was stopped by a group of six to seven armed militants near Kalwe under Kharkutta police outpost and were abducted”, said Ramesh Singh, superintendent of police, North Garo Hills.

Police informed that the vehicle was stopped and all the traders were lined up, of which seven were abducted and rest were allowed to go.

The two traders, who had witnessed the abduction, reported the matter to Kharkutta police outpost today. There were around 12 traders in the vehicle (Mahindra pick up).  “The police and the CoBRA commandos is on the job to find the whereabouts of the traders”, the SP added.-From Our Correspondent