A girl student, allegedly abducted by an unknown gunman in upper Assam’s Sibsagar district, was released on Thursday along the interstate-border with Nagaland, police sources said.
The Class VIII student of Kendriya Vidyalaya at Nazira, was abducted along with 10 children in a school van but the other children were released soon afterwards.
The girl, after safely reaching home, told reporters that she was taken by foot across a stream and into a forest in the night and released early on Thursday morning by her abductor. At around 4 am she walked about two km to a village near a tea garden and told the locals about her plight following which they informed the police, the girl said.
The security personal brought her to the police station and informed her father who came and took her home, police sources said. The girl told the police and the media that she had volunteered to be taken by the abductor instead of a small child as she was crying in fear.
Stating she was not treated badly by her abductor even though he gave her no food, the girl said, the man speaking in Hindi kept reassuring her that he would not harm her but release her soon as he had a child of her age.
He had, however, held his pistol inside her mouth when the security personnel were calling out her name during the search operation on Wednesday evening, she said.
The 11 children of two schools travelling in a van were abducted at gun point by the gunman who released ten of them before fleeing with the girl towards Nagaland. The gunman, brandishing two pistols after an argument with people at a roadside restaurant at Simoluguri, ran out on the road and came in front of the van carrying the 11 students from Kendriya Vidyalaya and Gurukul school in Nazira, police sources said.
As the van stopped, the gunman pointed his pistol at the driver’s temple and got inside the vehicle asking him to drive towards Nagaland, the sources said, adding, he then released ten children at Bihubor before fleeing away on foot with one child.
