The police are yet to trace the whereabouts of engineer P. Krishna Rao hailing from Gannavaram in the coastal district of Krishna in Andhra Pradesh. He was abducted on October 16 from a project site in lower Assam’s Kokrajhar district by five motorcycle-borne armed youth.
Kokrajhar Superintendent of Police P.K. Dutta told The Hindu that a team of the police, the Army and the CPRF was involved in the search and raids had been carried out at select locations.
“We believe that he is still in the custody of the kidnappers. The needle of suspicion is on the anti-talks faction of the militant outfit, National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB),” Mr. Dutta said over the phone.
He said neither the family nor the construction company had informed the police about any ransom demand by the kidnappers. “We have requested them to be in touch with us and inform immediately if and when kidnappers tried to contact them.”Mr. Rao, a civil engineer, worked as a project manager at Gayatri-East Coast Insulation (Gayatri ECI), a subsidiary of the Hyderabad-based construction company Gayatri Project Limited. He was abducted while supervising the construction of a portion of the East-West Corridor project of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) at Joypur near Karigaon, under Bismuri police outpost in Kokrajhar district of Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD).
Fire in air
The suspected militants fired three rounds in the air when workers at the construction site tried to resist them.
The kidnappers reportedly fled north along National Highway 31 C that leads to the India-Bhutan border through the Ripu-Chirang forest reserve.
Mr. Dutta said the abduction could perhaps have been averted had Mr. Rao followed the standing police instruction to all project managers and other officials not to move without the Special Police Officer (SPO) escort provided to them.
The company had been provided with 61 SPOs, who were equipped with sophisticated weapon and training for protection of project officials and staff, Mr. Dutta said.
