Six abducted by militants in Mizoram

Aizawl, March 26 (IANS) At least six people, including residents of Assam, Punjab, and Rajasthan, were abducted by unidentified tribal guerrillas in a Mizoram district bordering Bangladesh Monday, police said here.

"Heavily armed unidentified militants raided a workshed at Bunghmum under Lunglei district early Monday and abducted six people," a police spokesman told reporters here.

The captives -- a manager and five supervisors of a Guwahati-based private company -- were posted at Lunglei district in southwestern Mizoram, 200 km south of Aizawl, to supervise the on-going work of border fencing.

Senior police officials along with reinforcements have rushed to the area and launched a combing operation to locate the hostages and nab the guerrillas.

"We are not sure whether the hostages were taken to Bangladesh or not. The state government has asked the Border Security Force (BSF) to seal the border to prevent the rebels from taking the captives to Bangladesh," the police official said.

Mizoram has an international border of 404 km with Myanmar and 318 km with Bangladesh. The BSF has been guarding the Bangladesh border and troopers of the Assam Rifles were posted along the Myanmar border.

India is erecting a fence and putting up flood lighting all along the 4,095-km India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram to check trans-border movement of militants, prevent infiltration and check border crimes.