Assam teens’ bodies found in forest with stab wounds

The bodies of two teenagers, who had gone missing yesterday afternoon, were recovered from Dilli reserve forest in Assam’s Sivasagar district this morning with marks of injuries suspected to have been inflicted by sharp weapons.
Amlanjyoti Das and Amar Ekka, both 16 and friends and neighbours at Dangorikomar village under Borhat police station, had left home around 3pm on the Amlanjyoti’s bicycle.
They had told their families that they were going to watch the shooting of a film at Dillighat, a picnic spot on the bank of the Disang, 2km from home.
Amlanjyoti’s father, Sonadhar Das, who works at Borhat Mini Primary Health Centre, today said when his son did not return till 5.30pm, he called him on his mobile phone. Amlanjyoti is his only child.
“Someone else received the call and said I should forget him (Amlanjyoti),” Das said. “After that I kept calling my son’s number, but the phone was switched off.”
When the boys did not return till late in the evening, their families reported the matter to Borhat police station and to an army camp near the village. This morning, the villagers went towards Dillighat in search of the boys. They found the bicycle lying abandoned on Dhodor Ali, a road passing by the reserve forest.
The search party then went inside the forest and found the bodies about 500 metres from the road. The bodies bore injury marks on the necks and heads. Branches and twigs had been placed over the bodies in an apparent attempt to hide them.
The villagers informed the police who then went to the spot and launched investigations. Sources said some time ago, Sonadhar Das had received a demand note of Rs 2 lakh from an organisation calling itself Nagaland Battalion Force.
The police said they could not say anything about the matter as investigations had just begun, but there is a suspicion that Amlanjyoti could have been a victim of a feud over property between his family and some others.
“The killers could not have allowed Amar to walk away as he was a witness and so they murdered him too,” one of the sources said. Amar’s father, Simon Ekka, is a former tea garden labourer and has four other sons and two daughters.
A large number of students of Borhat Higher Secondary School, of which Amlanjyoti was a student of Class X, took out a procession to Dillighat today, demanding punishment to the culprits.
Amar had dropped out of the school after Class VIII.