it was a Friday evening, just past dark, when three armed men walked into a school construction site in one of Arunachal Pradesh’s most sensitive border districts — and walked out with two people.
The incident reportedly took place around 8 pm on September 25 at the under-construction campus of Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalaya (VKV) in Barap village, tucked deep inside Tirap district near the India-Myanmar border. A labourer and a site supervisor were allegedly taken away by the armed men. Just like that. In the middle of the evening, at a place where children are supposed to come and learn one day.
Tirap Superintendent of Police Aditya Singh confirmed that three armed underground cadres entered the premises and abducted the two men. The Barap village falls under the jurisdiction of Lazu Police Station — a remote outpost in a region long troubled by the presence of insurgent groups that have operated along the porous Myanmar frontier for decades. Anyone who knows Tirap knows that security incidents here are not new, but that doesn’t make this one any less alarming.
As of now, the whereabouts of the two workers remain unknown. Their safety has not been confirmed. The families waiting for them are in the worst kind of limbo — the kind with no answers and no timeline.
What makes this particularly troubling is the target. This wasn’t a government office or a security installation. It was a school under construction. A VKV campus — part of a network of schools that has quietly served tribal communities across the Northeast for decades. Workers building a space for children were the ones taken. That detail sits heavy.
The identity of the armed men and the group they belong to have not yet been officially established. Police and security agencies are actively investigating. But in Tirap, the usual suspects tend to be factions of outfits that have long used the thick forests and the border terrain to their advantage.
Authorities say they are working to trace the missing men. The district administration and security agencies are expected to release more details as the situation develops. Standard language for a situation that is anything but standard for the two men whose fates are currently out of their own hands.
What this incident also underlines is a grim reality about development work in conflict-affected zones — that the people doing the most ordinary jobs, the ones laying bricks and pouring concrete for a better future, are sometimes the most vulnerable. They don’t carry weapons. They carry tools. And in places like Tirap, that can make all the difference.
The investigation is ongoing. Two men are missing. And somewhere near the India-Myanmar border, the answers are yet to come.
