The LAC with China is about 80 km from Damin, the last administrative circle in that area.
A search operation has been launched in Arunachal Pradesh's remote Kurung Kumey district, not very far from the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China, to find a group of 19 road construction workers who went missing two weeks back from a border road construction site in Damin circle. The site is about 300 km from the state capital Itanagar.
There are unconfirmed reports of the recovery of the dead body of one labourer in the Kumey river. Teams have been sent out to verify the veracity of this information, officials said.
According to a missing complaint filed by the contractor under whom these 19 migrant labourers who had come from Assam were working, the labourers had allegedly fled the labour camps at the road construction site of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) in Damin circle on July 5 after the contractor reportedly denied them leave to go back to their homes in Assam to celebrate Eid al-Adha last week.
The missing report was filed at the local police station on July 13, police sources said.
"What we can confirm is that 19 construction workers who fled the construction site, according to the missing report filed last week, are still untraced. There is a social media post doing rounds about a dead body seen in the river area and we have sent out senior officials and a police party to verify this information. The area is extremely remote with hilly terrains and dense jungles, our search operations are on. The under-construction road is a border road that would lead to the remote border villages from Damin circle headquarters and is a very crucial strategic road," Deputy Commissioner of Kurung Kumey district Nighee Bengia told NDTV over the telephone from district headquarters Koloriang.
Damin is about 130 km from Koloriang and the construction site is another 15 km from Damin, the Deputy Commissioner further added.
The LAC with China is about 80 km from Damin, the last administrative circle in that area, officials said.
Police say they have registered another case against the sub-contractor from Assam's Lakhimpur who allegedly brought those migrant labourers from Assam.
Meanwhile, district police sources added that a missing case was filed for seven people in Bilasipara of Assam in June by their families. It is said that the seven labourers were taken by one Rejaul Karim saying that they will be given work in Itanagar. Ever since they were taken from Kokrajhar on May 30, 2022, they haven't been in touch with their families.
It is assumed that the 19 labourers are from the border area of Kokrajhar and Dhubri of Assam, sources added.