No trace of hostages, fencing work stops

Aizawl, April 2 (IANS) With six hostages abducted by a separatist outfit in Mizoram untraced for a week, border fencing along the India-Bangladesh border has been stopped, officials said Monday.

"The Mizoram Armed Police, BSF (Border Security Force) and police are continuing their combing operation to locate the captives," a Mizoram home department official told reporters here.

He said the BSF had sought help from Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) fearing the Indians may have been taken across the border by the abductors.

A manager and five supervisors of a Guwahati-based company were kidnapped by heavily-armed militants March 26 from their work shed at Bunghmum in Lunglei district in southwestern Mizoram, 200 km south of Aizawl.

Before the abduction, the militants also looted Rs.2 lakh in cash from the hostages who were residents of Assam, Punjab and Rajasthan.

Mizoram police suspect the militants are hiding the hostages inside the mountainous Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of southeast Bangladesh where many Indian insurgent groups have hideouts.

No militant group has claimed responsibility for the abduction.

Mizoram has a 404-km border with Myanmar and 318 km border with Bangladesh.

India is erecting a fence and putting flood lights along the 4,095-km India-Bangladesh border to check militants and crime and to curb infiltration.