Six Pak engineers kidnapped in Afghanistan

Unknown gunmen kidnapped six Pakistani engineers and two workers of the GTZ, a German non-governmental organisation in the northern Jowzjan province of Afghanistan, police said Friday.

The gunmen kidnapped the Pakistani engineers in Zaka area on the Jowzjan-Sar-i-Pul Highway late Thursday, Colonel Muhammad Ibrahim, security chief of Jowzjan province, told the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP).

He said the gunmen also seized an engineer of GTZ and his colleague in the same area. Sources, however, told AIP that of the six people picked up by the gunmen, four were Afghans and two belong to Pakistan. The sources said the engineers were conducting survey of the highway to asphalt it, adding the GTZ engineer and his colleague were passing through the area when intercepted by the gunmen.

Another source said the engineers and GTZ workers were kidnapped by the brother of a known anti-government commander, Hazrat Chonta, to make a deal with government for the release of his brother.

Hazrat Chonta was detained by Afghan forces sometimes back. No claim of responsibility for the kidnappings has yet been made by the Taliban or any other group.

Our Landikotal correspondent adds: The bodies of the two Pakistani drivers killed in Afghanistan were handed over to their relatives at the Torkham border on Friday, border officials said.

Afghan Taliban had ambushed a convoy of Nato oil tankers in Orzugan province in Afghanistan on Wednesday in which two Pakistani transporters, besides several others, were killed. The dead were identified as Irfan Afridi of Nikikhel village in Landikotal tehsil and Taj Malook of Chakesar in Shangla district.

The bodies were brought to the Torkham border and then shifted to their native areas for burial, the officials said.