Sivasagar police arrest 2 more in ULFA-I's ONGC abduction case

Sivasagar, Oct 20: Two more persons involved in the foiled Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) kidnapping case, Safikul Rahman of Pujan Road near the NH 37 and Trinayan Gogoi of Teok, were arrested by Sivasagar Police from their hideouts in Guwahati and Jorhat respectively on Friday.

Safikul is a night bus driver and Trinayan is a petty businessman. Safikul was the driver whom the mastermind of the kidnapping plan Tahirul Hussain entrusted the responsibility of procuring SIM cards from Dimapur and then carrying the four armed cadres of the banned United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I) from Lengibor Bakpukhuri near Nagaland border on October 5 to Sivasagar.

Two of the four cadres later boarded the Tata Tiago car driven by Irshad Latif, another prime accused. Trinayan Gogoi lent a helping hand to the gang through some other works and the interrogation is on.

Recently, Sivasagar police had foiled a ULFA-I bid to abduct top ONGC officers from a rig near Bokota Nemuguri with the arrest of two persons, including a surrendered cadre of the outfit.

During the operation, which was conducted based on inputs from intelligence agencies, police arrested Irshad Latiff on Tuesday and then arrested the second accused, Rahul Hazarika alias Laden, a surrendered ULFA-I cadre, following a shootout at Bokota in the wee hours of Wednesday. Rahul sustained injuries in the shootout.

However, another accused, Tahir Hussain, who is an assistant engineer (drilling) of the ONGC, gave the police a slip when they reached his residence at Babupatty on Tuesday. According to police, Tahir had been providing some key information to ULFA-I cadres to help them carry out the abduction.