Chattisgarh Police today said that despite a massive search operation, they were yet to get any clue about the whereabouts of two persons who were abducted by Naxals after the ultras stormed a road construction site in Balrampur district on April 28.
Petrus Dungdung, a sub-engineer attached to the Centre's Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) and Shankar Bihari, an employee of a private construction firm, were kidnapped by Naxals while they were engaged in the construction of a road between Bandarchua and Pundag villages in the district, around 450km from here.
Another employee, Raju Gupta, who was also abducted, was released by the Maoists later that night.
The Naxals, who had stormed the site, had set ablaze an excavator, a road compactor and three tipper trucks.
"Search operations are underway on a massive scale and the entire forest area of Samri, along the border with Jharkhand, has been cordoned off by security forces," Balrampur Superintendent of Police, TR Koshima, said.
"We are yet to get any information of their whereabouts," Koshima told PTI.
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Koshima said that preliminary investigations had revealed that cadres of the Maoist Communist Centre, a proscribed outfit active along the Chhattisgarh-Jharkhand border, might be behind the incident.
He said the group was headed by local leaders Mrityunjay and Vimal.
The official, however, added that there was no confirmation as yet on which group did it because there had been no ransom demand made so far.
Meanwhile, Congress MLA from Samri, Pritam Ram, accused the ruling BJP of making false claims that the northern area of the state had been freed from the Naxal menace.
"I had yesterday visited the spot in Samri from where Naxals had kidnapped them. I have appealed to the Naxals to release them," he said.
The MLA claimed that frequent Naxal attacks in Balrampur itself had belied Chief Minister Raman Singh's claim that north Chhattisgarh was now free of Naxal terror.
The sub-engineer's wife had, earlier, appealed to the Naxals to release her husband.