Nagaon, March 13: Militants of a group that has been repeatedly holding national projects to ransom were back at it yesterday, abducting three officials of a private construction company working on the North Cachar Hills stretch of the East-West corridor.

Valecha Engineering Ltd, one of five companies contracted by the National Highways Authority of India to build the 265-km hilly stretch between Silchar and Lumding, informed police about the abductions after the three officials failed to return from their work sites till late in the night.

The trio — project manager Umesh Suresh Verma, deputy project manager Juga Prasad Deka and senior technical engineer Dhruba Jyoti Choudhury — were abducted along with driver Babul Bora and Assam Police constable Tapan Singh Timung.

Police said they were probably waylaid and abducted from a site between Mandardisa and Hatikhali, under Langting police station. The Bolero in which they were travelling was found abandoned near an army camp at Ardaupur.

The Jewel Gorlosa faction of the Dima Halam Daogah (DHD) is the main suspect. In 2006, the same group shot dead 11 members of a railway team engaged in gauge conversion at a site not far from where the abductions occurred.

Today, panic-stricken workers of all five companies building the East-West corridor refused to report for duty until the government made foolproof security arrangements.

A high level police team, led by North Cachar Hills SP Dipok Kedia, reached the spot this morning and are camping there to supervise search and rescue operations.

Valecha Engineering has been contracted to build a 15-km stretch of highway that runs through a hilly, forested area. The nearest town is Lumding in Nagaon district, 27km away.

Apart from Valecha Engineering, the Silchar-Lumding stretch is being built by Punj Lloyd, Gamon India, Hindustan Construction Company and Continental Engineering. The last two companies have bagged contracts for the major portion of the highway.

Almost all the companies working in the North Cachar Hills have their base camps in Lumding since it is safer there. The Gorlosa group has attacked employees of Gamon India twice already. A worker died in the first attack, on December 7, 2006. Another was killed in an ambush on a Gamon India vehicle on January 18 this year.

A senior official of one of the construction companies said it was a shame that militants were being allowed to prey on workers engaged in projects that would benefit this backward district.

“Now we know that our repeated pleas to Delhi and Dispur for security have yielded no result. They are iterating that army operations will be launched and a special security force comprising ex-servicemen deployed for our security. But till date, we have noticed no such development. Do they want us to continue working risking our lives?” he asked.

Valecha Engineering said the abductors of the three officials had not contacted anyone from the company for ransom.

Two of the hostages are from Assam. Deka hails from Jagiroad in Morigaon district and Choudhury from Lumding.