ULFA-I releases second hostage after 106 days

Itanagar/Guwahati, April 5 : The second employee of a New Delhi-based private oil and gas exploration company, abducted by the anti-talk outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent, was released on Monday after 106 days in captivity, officials said.

Quippo Oil and Gas Infrastructure Ltds radio operator, Ram Kumar, a resident of Bihar, was freed two days after the first employee, drilling superintendent Pranab Kumar Gogoi, of Assams Sivasagar, was released.

Security officials in Itanagar and Guwahati said that Ram Kumar was released on Myanmar side of Lungwa village and was intercepted by Assam Rifles troopers during their border patrol.He was subsequently handed over to the Arunachal Pradesh Police.

Gogoi and Ram Kumar were abducted from the companys Kumchaikha hydrocarbon drilling site in Arunachal Pradeshs Changlang on December 21 last year.Earlier Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Finance and Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma other Ministers and Congress leaders including the partys deputy leader in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi had separately appealed to ULFA-I leaders to release the two hostages.

The ULFA-I, led by commander-in-chief Paresh Barua -- had earlier set February 17 to "take action" if the authorities concerned did not take appropriate steps to secure the release of the oil company officials.The outfit, in several statements earlier, had threatened action against the two.