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Guwahati: The kidnapping of two employees of the New Delhi-headquartered Quippo Oil and Gas Infrastructure Limited by insurgents has come as a reminder of troubled times in Assam, when the ‘kidnapping-for-ransom’ strategy spread terror in the state.
This time though, the crime is being seen as one of desperation.
The two men drilling superintendent Pranab Kumar Gogoi, 51, and radio operator Ram Kumar, 35 were abducted by the United Liberation Front of Assam-Independent (ULFA-I) on 21 December from Arunachal Pradesh’s Changlang district, which borders Myanmar.
Last Sunday, the banned outfit’s commander-in-chief Paresh Baruah called up journalists in Assam to say that it has “deferred action” against the two officials and that the “deadline set for their release has been extended”. This came after it had threatened to take the “ultimate action” against the hostages earlier in the week.
India Claims China Is Supporting Insurgents on Its Border With Burma
NEW DELHI Indian officials are accusing China of supporting insurgents who have been active in recent months in its northeast region.
The insurgents are being provided with weapons by Chinese proxies inside Burma (also known as Myanmar), according to Indian media, and are helping China open a new battlefront on India’s northeastern border, at a time when India–China relations are already tense because of a conflict in Ladakh in north-western India.
“There are telltale signs, which indicate that the Chinese have been supporting the internal insurgent movement in the northeast, in the sense that some of the armed groups that are operating in the northeast do have weapons that clearly have Chinese marks on them,” N.C. Bipindra, editor of strategic affairs magazine Defence.Capital and the chairman of Delhi-based think tank Law and Society Alliance, told The Epoch Times.