IT is a case of immense tragedy in its contours, and fairly anomalous in the details. On Sept 4, in the populated area of Landi Kotal in Khyber Agency, about five to six kilometres from the Afghan border, a group of 18 young men were at a popular picnic spot near a mountain stream. Their party was raided by a cohort of over a dozen armed men, apparently from Afghanistan, who kidnapped the entire group and took the men across the border into Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province. One of the abductees, a watchman, managed to escape since he was familiar with the area. It is from him that we have what scant details there are.
However, it has been confirmed that the men are indeed in Afghanistan; the local political administration arranged for a six-member delegation comprising mainly the victims’ families to travel there for negotiations. The initial ransom demand was Rs50m, which was later reduced to Rs10m. But the latter amount remains too much for the villagers to raise, and thus, over a month later, the 17 men are still missing.
In the wake of such kidnappings are left broken families, young wives and aged parents who can only hope and pray for the safety of the abducted men. The latter, in many cases, were the sole breadwinners of their families, raising modest earnings through small-time businesses. Thus, financial catastrophe looms as well. And yet, the only state intervention has been in the travel arrangements to Nangarhar. Do the authorities simply not care about the fate of missing Pakistani citizens? Can a conversation not be opened up through diplomatic channels? Further, it is worth pondering that the site of the kidnapping is close to the well-manned Torkham border crossing. That an armed posse can swoop down and abduct 17 people must raise questions about the state of security. These issues notwithstanding, it is the fate of the abductees that must be made a priority.
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