Rescued traders recount their ordeal in captivity
Source: Hueiyen News Service / Newmai News Network

Shillong, June 28 2014 : The four traders, rescued after being kidnapped a day before, reached home Thursday night at about 12 am escorted by the police of Dadenggre.

All four heaved a huge sigh of relief upon being rescued by the police and CRPF which had gone in search of them.

Narrating their experiences of a night in captivity, the four talked about the fear they felt and the fusillade of bullets that missed them during the encounter between their kidnappers and the police.

"We were travelling in two pickup trucks.

There were close to 50 people in the two pickups including Garos and non-Garos.

We were stopped at Kantanagre and told to line up.

They first asked non-Garos to line up separately.

They then asked us as to who did business in betel nuts and took the four of us and asked the rest to leave," said Shah Jamal, one of the rescued.

The 4 were picked up at 7:30 am in the morning by four militants.

They then began the walk through the jungles around them and were on foot for almost 4 hours.

"Sometimes, they too seemed lost, unsure of where they wanted to take us.

We finally reached the village of Darekgre where we were kept in an empty house.

We were asked to rest and were not given any food at night and we did not want it," said Azgar Ali.

"The next morning, they cooked food for us and we had chicken and rice at about 8 am.

We were then asked to get ready as we were supposed to be moving further into the jungle.

However, given the fact that the day was warm, they said they would start at about two.

They did not say which group they were from and we were too scared to ask," said Gulu Byapari.

There were only 4 kidnappers and the leader of the group was Dharma Kanta Rai, who had told them that he was from Assam even though he spoke the local language as well as the others.

The three from the group were posted at three different locations, overlooking the hut that they were in.

Rai was with them and was speaking on the phone when he saw the CRPF and police approach.

He gave a signal in code to the others and immediately started firing, standing just beside the four kidnapped men who were seated nearby.

"Suddenly there was hail of gunfire and shots passed very close to us.

Rai fired at the police and tried to jump over the roof of the house.

He was possibly hit in the process.

The other three being at different locations ran.

The firing lasted for about 5 minutes and we saw Rai's body.

He died on the spot.

The others ran immediately and did not get time to recover their belongings," confirmed Atwar Ali.

According to the victims, the four militants had 2 AKs along with 2 automatic pistols with them.

They were wearing black clothes and two half pants.

Gulu Byapari had in fact even managed to evade the kidnappers for an hour, but instead of running away from captivity, he was caught when his smoking, gave away his location.

According to the other three, he was beaten up by the militants and had problems standing up after the beating he received.

"Only I had a little money with me, however, there was bullet that passed through the notes, so I could not use it," said Gulu.

After the rescue, the four were taken along with the team of rescuers to Dadenggre from where they insisted on going back home.

They were escorted back to Chibinang after questioning and reached home at about 12 am Thursday night.

The four confirmed the time of rescue to be somewhere around 11:30 am, however, as none of them had a watch, they could not be absolutely certain.

The version of events from the kidnapped 4 differs in a few ways from the police version.

While the police maintain that there were 9 militants in the group, the victims counted only four kidnappers.

The operation was helped by the police, but it was mainly the CRPF which led the assault.

The operation lasted only 5 minutes and most of the shots were fired by the CRPF and police into the air to ensure the captives were not hurt.

"We are just happy to be back home after the ordeal.

We are just small time traders," said the relieved kidnap victims when asked about the experience.

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