Nepalnews.com Mercantile Communications Pvt. Ltd.

Seven govt. employees, including LDO, abducted in Ilam (1:20 p.m.)

Maoist insurgents have abducted seven government employees, including Local Development Officer (LDO) of Ilam Saturday morning.

According to reports from the eastern district of Ilam, a group of armed insurgents stopped a micro-bus at Kolbung VDC-1 section of Mechi highway at around 8 a. m., asked for I-D cards of people traveling in the vehicle and forcibly took seven government employees along with them to an unknown destination.

Women Development Officer and executive officer of Ilam Municipality, however, managed to escape as the rebels could not identify them.

The rebels reportedly abducted the civil servants alleging them of defying the call of Mechi-Koshi `banda’ (shutdown strike in Mechi and Koshi zones) called by them.

Those abducted include Planning Officer at the District Development Committee Ilam Narayan Koirala, chief of the District Technical Office (DTO) Padam Prasad Pokhrel, Overseer at the DTO Sravan Kumar Chaudhary, Overseer at the state-owned Nepal Electricity Authority Ilam branch Yogendra Thakur and Secretary of Barbote VDC of Ilam Dik Prasad Dahal.

When contacted, acting Chief District Officer of Ilam, Bijay Raj Poudel, confirmed the incident. He said security forces patrolling in the region have already been alerted and that a search operation was already underway to locate and rescue the abducted government employees.

He said he was still awaiting for details.

There has been no word from the Maoist side as yet regarding the abduction. nepalnews.com by July 30 05