Cops still clueless on who abducted HBT officials

Twenty one days have passed since three senior officers of ABG-led Haldia Bulk Terminal (HBT) were abducted and forced to leave Haldia port town at gunpoint, but police till date have not made a single arrest in the case.

The abduction of Captain Manpreet Jolly, Jagdish Behera, Bhusan Patil and his wife and one-year-old daughter from a residential apartment by goons on the night of October 27 had led HBT to wrap up its operations in Bengal citing law and order problem.

A team of police went to Visakhapatanam on October 31 to record the statement of the three officers. "The officers told the team that they cannot identify the abductors as they had wore monkey caps. So it's difficult for us to arrest anyone," said Officer in Charge of Haldia police station M Hussain.

According to him, police been interrogating other people like the security guard of the ATM located just opposite to the residential apartment so that they could give them clue about the people who had allegedly abducted the officials.

Police sources, however, said the goons were brought from outside Haldia and were hired by a local Trinamool Congress leader Shyamal Adak, who happens to be the personal assistant of Trinamool MP Suvendu Adhikary. "If locals had threatened the officers, then they would have been easily identified and caught. That's why Adak hired goons from other nearby districts," a source in the intelligence branch of state police said.

It has also been alleged that since the perpetrators were closed to ruling Trinamool Congress, the police are not making any progress in the case.

There are also reports of the brewing tension between two Trinamool factions that led to the exit of HBT from Haldia. Sources said the Trinamool faction led by Adhikary and another by Trinamool MLA from Haldia Siuli Saha are at loggerheads. The rivalry between the two leaders, sources said, was the cause behind the rift within the local unit of the Trinamool's labour wing — INTTUC — that widened after HBT retrenched 30 workers in the wake of its decision to leave Haldia.

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