An Indian engineer was kidnapped with two Afghan police guards and a driver in south-west Afghanistan, officials said Sunday, as Taleban claimed they had snatched the men and threatened to kill the Indian if his firm did not leave the country.
The four were captured late Saturday while driving in volatile Nimroz province, a district chief in neighbouring Farah province told AFP.
"They were kidnapped by unknown people. We have launched a search operation to find them," said Khash Road district chief Mohammed Hashim Noorzai. "They were driving on an unsafe road, which they shouldn't have. They did not take the normal road."
The Indian national had been working on a road construction project in Nimroz that was funded by the Indian government, Noorzai said. The interior ministry said the four were kidnapped in Nimroz's Poshta-e-Hassan area by unknown men. "A search operation and investigations have been launched by police," ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai told AFP.
A purported Taleban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, told AFP that members of the group had kidnapped the engineer and three guards in Khash Road district.
He threatened to kill the Indian if his firm did not leave Afghanistan.
"If the Indian construction company for which the Indian engineer works does not leave Afghanistan in course of 48 hours, we will kill him. Religious scholars of Taleban movement will also hold a session to decide of the fate of the Afghans who were arrested together with the Indian engineer," he said. Indian sources in Afghanistan said the engineer had worked for the Indian government's Border Roads Organisation.
Self-styled spokesmen for the fundamentalist and militant Islamic movement often take responsibility for attacks in claims that are not always accurate. A Taleban claim to have kidnapped a British engineer and his Afghan interpreter in Farah province on August 31 is however widely believed to be credible. The men's bodies were found a few days later. Two Indians working on a road project in southern Zabul province were kidnapped in December 2003 and released unharmed two weeks later. The Taleban had said they had taken the men but this was rejected by authorities who negotiated their release.
India's foreign ministry said it was checking news of the latest kidnapping. "If the reports are true, we condemn the incident and urge that all persons should be released," spokesman Navtej Sarna said in New Delhi. The engineer was working on a project to build a 200-kilometre road between Delaram on the Kandahar-Herat highway to Zaranj, on the border with Iran.
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