Silchar, April 25: Militants from Tripura are sneaking into the south Assam district of Hailakandi to carry out subversive activities like abduction for ransom and extortion, the district superintendent of police, Hemanta Bhattacharjee, said today.

Bhattacharjee expressed concern at this development and said police patrolling in the jungles in south Hailakandi was affected as a CRPF battalion was recently withdrawn from there for election duty in West Bengal. He identified this militant group as the Tripura Security Force (TSF).

Bhattacharjee said these rebels were sometimes driven into Hailakandi and Karimganj districts when police and the security forces conduct counter-insurgency campaigns there. They also undertake reconnaissance missions in these districts and return to Tripura either through Assam or Mizoram borders, he added.

The superintendent of police said tension was brewing in the district, particularly at Katlicherra block, following the abduction of a small time trader, Jakir Hossain Laskar, 31, from Gallacherra village in the district on Wednesday night by a group of gunmen.

Yuba Yakya Manch, a conglomeration of a seven civil outfits, have threatened to call a 12-hour bandh tomorrow in Hailakandi district if the police failed to locate the hideout of the group and recover him by tonight.

The Manch, which had earlier set a deadline of 48 hours for the police to trace Laskar, said it would call a bandh on Tuesday if the youth was not recovered by the latest deadline. Bhattacharjee said the police suspected the surrendered United Liberation Front of the Barak Valley militants might be behind the abduction.

The superintendent of police said he hoped to trace the hideout where Laskar was being kept in a day or two.