Updated

Masked rebels reportedly abducted volunteers working for an environmental group in a remote national park in India.

The group was searching for tigers and elephants during a counting mission, but instead found about 20 armed militants on Sunday that took them hostage, according to the AFP.

The six-person volunteer group consisted of three men and three women, all Indian nationals.

The exact identity of the hostage-takers is undermined; at least three militant groups are known in the Manas National Park region, where the group was abducted.

"A major hunt is under way to rescue them," Kampa Borgoyary, deputy chief of the local Bodoland Territorial Council, told AFP.

Violent insurgencies are known in the area and killed about 100 people in 2008, according to the report.

Please read the entire story here.