IB Officer and Trader killed by Insurgents in Meghalaya

NEW DELHI: The bodies of young Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer Bikash Singh and a small time trader, who were kidnapped by insurgents in Meghalaya's South Garo Hills district, bordering Bangladesh, a month ago, were found buried in a jungle.

Bikash Singh, a young police officer has joined the intelligence service a couple of years ago. The decomposed body of the officer has been handed over to family members on Monday after the post mortem.

Highly placed sources in the Shillong police claimed that usually kidnappings are to collect ransom. But this time both men were killed without any telephone calls to the relatives or others from the kidnappers. It is believed that once the abductors realized that the young officer was from the IB, they decided to kill him. The trader was with him so he also was killed. The sources said that the insurgents were aware that Singh could prove problematic for them and killed him soon after he was abducted.

"We have recovered the body of the IB officer and that of the trader yesterday from a shallow grave in a forested area in Bolchugre," DGP Meghalaya Rajiv Mehta confirmed to The Citizen from Shillong.

The Mehgalaya Police is worried about the increase in abductions in the state.

“This is very unfortunate that the young officer has been killed but we have taken measures and also put up a counter strategy in place that has helped us in a great way. And in the coming months the results will be before us. In this particular case our planning helped to trace the bodies,” Mehta said.

The sources said that the two men were killed a day after being abducted on September 24 according to the postmortem report.

Sources placed in the department claimed that they were killed a day after their abduction on September 24 and the bodies were moderately decomposed.

Family members of the victims have identified the bodies as those of Singh and cloth merchant Kamal Saha.

The two were kidnapped at gunpoint by members of the A'chik Songna An'pachakgipa Kotok (ASAK) militant outfit on September 24 from a place between Ampangre and Panda reserve forest in the district. ASAK is a breakaway faction of Achik National Volunteer Council (ANVC).

Highly placed officials said that the breakthrough came after the police arrested and interrogated Sengran Shira, the brother of ASAK commander Sengbat Shira, who led them to the site where the duo were killed.