Nagaon, Sept. 24: After nearly 36 hours of speculation about whether the three government employees who went missing from the North Cachar Hills on Saturday were taken hostage by militants, police officially ended the suspense by registering a case of abduction for ransom.

The case was registered at Umrangsu police station last night after the office of the governor, who is in charge of the North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council, intervened.

The police were initially reluctant to register a case on the premise that agriculture development officer Beni Madhab Borua, junior engineer Anjan Hafila and gram sewak Dinesh Teron may not have been abducted.

The driver of the vehicle in which the trio was travelling, too, contradicted the abduction theory. Sribesh Dutta told the police that the two officials and the gram sewak were “not abducted”. He said the trio did some shopping in Umrangsu town before Hafila asked him to return to his residence with the purchases and also tell his wife that he would be late.

Militants suspected to be from the Jewel Gorlosa faction of the Dima Halam Daogah today called an official of Doyangbra development block to ask for Rs 4 crore in ransom.

“They (the militants) telephoned one of the senior officers of the block and asked him to pay the money on behalf of Doyangbra and Maibong development blocks. They threatened to abduct employees of the other three development blocks of the district if they did not pay another Rs 2 crore each,” a source said.

North Cachar Hills has five development blocks — Mahur, Maibong, Doyangbra, Harangjao and New Songbar.

“Doyangbra block development officer Jayanta Sarker is also in charge of Maibong development block, which could be the reason why the outfit asked him to arrange for Rs 4 crore,” the source said.

Borua, who hails from Numaligarh in Golaghat district, is an employee of the agriculture department and Hafila is from the public works department.

Both of them are on deputation to the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA).

A Raj Bhavan source confirmed that most DRDA employees had fled the district for fear of being abducted. “There is a sense of fear among the government employees and that is only natural.”

Police search teams had not found any clue to the whereabouts of the two abducted officials and the gram sewak till late this evening.

In an unrelated development, a DHD member was seriously wounded in an attack by the Gorlosa faction near Umrangsu this morning. Superintendent of police Bhakta Bahadur Chetry said Amit Jidung was on his motorbike when militants of the rival faction shot at him.