Indian volunteers were conducting a census of tigers and elephants on edge of national park
GUWAHATI, India (AlertNet) – Three conservationists from the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) have been released 11 days after they were abducted by suspected rebels in India’s troubled northeast region, police said.
“Three WWF volunteers have been set free today,” senior police officer P.K. Dutta told AlertNet by phone on Thursday from Kokrajhar town, some 20 km (12 miles) from where they went missing.
He said the three men were found in a forested area close to the Bhutan border from where police escorted them to a safe place.
A group of six WWF volunteers, all Indian nationals, were conducting a census of tigers and elephants on the outskirts of the protected forests of Manas National Park in Assam when they were taken at gun-point by a suspected separatist rebel group on Feb 6.
The three female volunteers were released three days later and police intensified their search for the remaining members of the group.
No insurgent group has claimed responsibility and the motive remains unclear, but police say they suspect a faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, which is fighting for a separate state for Assam's Bodo tribes people and has a presence in the area.
The group was blamed for a series of explosions in 2008 that killed over 100 people and wounded hundreds more. The rebels often target local villagers and forestry officials, accusing them of providing information to security forces.
While separatist guerrilla groups have in the past targeted businessmen in exchange for a ransom, conservationists and aid workers have never been attacked or abducted.
India's remote northeastern states have been ravaged by 50 years of bloody conflicts, and the region is a turbulent mix of languages, races, religions and civilisations - including 400 tribal and sub-tribal groups, many of whom fear a loss of their identity.
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