Six WWF workers kidnapped in Kokrajhar

: Kokrajhar, February 07, 2011

Six WWF volunteer field workers  including three girls were abducted by unidentified arms militants from Laopani area near Ultapani in Kokrajhar district bordering Bhutan last evening. Sources said the teams were abducted by unidentified 20 members armed youths at around 4 pm in Kokrajhar district while they were on way to the area for the field work.  A eight member team from the WWF are on mission to surveying animal monitoring of rare species like elephant, tiger since January 21 last in Bodoland area. The groups are in Kokrajhar since January 19 and are on the field since 21 January and had already finished the field work at Jamduar, Pepsu among others and they arrived at Ultapani on January 30 last and have been staying at Ultapani. The site from where they were taken away is about 8 km east of Ultapani and around 65 km from Kokrajhar town.

The six abducted by the militants are identified as Gautam Kishore Sarma, Pranjal Kumar Saikia, Syed Nushad Zamman, Tarali Goswami and Pallavi Chakrabarty and Sabarna Goswami. Two others David Smith and Binita Barwati were not with the group when the incident.

They were on way towards Guguni river with some members of Ultapani Biodiversity Conservation Society, a local NGO as guides, when they came cross the armed group numbering around 20. The group asked the NGO members to return before taking away the WWF activist, said a senior forest official in Kokrajhar.