ITANAGAR, Dec 6 (PTI): The Arunachal Pradesh police rescued a senior forest official within four hours of his abduction in West Kameng district, an officer said on Tuesday. Divisional forest officer (DFO) of Rupa forest division, Bittem Darrang was abducted on Monday by four persons. However, police rescued the official within four hours and arrested all the persons involved in the crime, West Kameng superintendent of police (SP) Bharat Reddy said.
The DFO was rescued with assistance from East Kameng police, he said. The persons involved in the abduction have been identified as Michael Tajo (33), Joy Flago (29), Monuruddin Ali (33) and Sicilia Takam Tajo (35), the police officer said.
The SP said that on receipt of information from the Rupa Range Forest Officer (RFO) about the abduction of the DFO from his residence around 1 pm, the district police formed four teams to conduct searches at the possible routes of travel of the abductors with the captive.
“Around 5 pm, East Kameng SP Rahul Gupta informed that the accused had been detained at the Bana check gate and the DFO was present with them,” Reddy said, adding that a vehicle with no number plate was also seized. “Preliminary questioning has revealed that the motive behind kidnapping was to extort contract(s) from the DFO,” the SP added.
