Abducted oil co workers’ families go begging to Paresh Baruah’s ancestral home

DIBRUGARH: The families of abducted Quippo Oil and Gas Infrastructure Ltd employees Pranab Kr Gogoi and Ram Kumar today went begging to the residence of United Liberation From of Asom (ULFA) (Independent) chief Paresh Baruah at Jeraigaon, 35 km from here, seeking their safe release.

The ULFA (I) has claimed to have kidnapped the two employees from an oilfield in Arunachal Pradesh on December 21 and has demanded Rs 20 crore ransom from their employers for their release. In a recent video release the two employees have also stated that the NSCN was also associated in the abduction.

The ULFA (I) has set a deadline of February 16 for the oil company to secure their release failing which Ram Kumar, who hails from Bihar, would be executed.

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Gogoi’s wife, daughter and sister, along with the father and father-in-law of Ram Kumar knelt down with folded hands and teary eyes before Paresh Baruah’s elder brother Bimal Baruah begging for the safe release of the two.

"Through Bimal Baruah, I have extended my regards to Paresh Baruah and begged for the safe release of my husband Pranab Gogoi and his colleague Ram Kumar. Be it for the sake of humanity or looking at the faces of our children, I beg for the safe release of the two," begged the wife of Gogoi who was weeping inconsolably.

Gogoi's daughter too appealed for the safety of her father. "No child can be happy if their father is not around. I request the leaders of ULFA (I) to release my father and Ram Kumar uncle as well," she said.

"My entire family is dying every single moment waiting for the safe release of my son. I beg and pray for the safety of my son. We are poor people and this is all what I can do for now. My grandchild is suffering from blood cancer and my son’s earning was the only saving grace for him," Ram Kumar's father said.

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A resident of Sivasagar, Gogoi works as a drilling supervisor and Kumar as a radio operator in the company that drills for Oil India Ltd wells in the Innao area of Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh. They were abducted when a group of armed men came looking for another employee who was absent that day.

ULFA (I) had in a recent statement asked the New Delhi-based oil company to pay the outfit its “share for extracting natural resources from Assam and the Northeast”.

The outfit also said the oil company would be “banned” from operating in Assam and Southeast Asia if it failed to pay the ransom. It also asked the people of the region and entrepreneurs associated with the oil company to look for alternative means of bread and butter.