Team News Riveting
Guwahati, April 21
Three employees of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) were abducted by armed miscreants in Sivasagar of Assam in the wee hours of Wednesday.
The abduction took place on a rig site of ONGC in Lakwa field of Sivasagar District, the company said in a statement. The three employees have been identified as Mohini Mohan Gogoi (Junior Technician, Production) from Sivasagar district, Alokesh Saikia (Assistant Junior Engineer, Production) from Jorhat district and Ritul Saikia (Assistant Junior Engineer, Production) from Golaghat district.
The abducted employees were taken by the miscreants in an operational vehicle belonging to ONGC. Later, the vehicle was found abandoned near the Nimonagarh jungles close to the Assam-Nagaland border, the company said, adding that a complaint has been lodged by ONGC with the local police. Higher officials of the State Police are on the site.
Local administration has been informed about the incident and ONGC is in constant touch with the higher authorities, the company added. ONGC is India’s biggest oil and gas exploration and production company. The company has been exploring and producing oil and gas in Upper Assam since the early 1960s.
The senior police officials said the modus operandi of abduction indicate that the militants of ULFA could be behind the incident. It is in fact the only insurgency group active in the region.
In December last year, ULFA(I) and Myanmar-faction of NSCN (K) had abducted two employees, one from Assam and another from Bihar, of the Quippo Oil and Gas Infrastructure Limited from Kumchaikha hydrocarbon drilling site near Innao in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh. They were released in April.
All the three employees are reported to be from Assam.
