Abducted Indians safe, say Taliban

A Taliban official said on Monday that two Indians kidnapped over the weekend, while working on a US-funded road project were alive and well...

A Taliban official said on Monday that two Indians kidnapped over the weekend, while working on a US-funded road project were alive and well, adding that demands would be made later for their release.

Mullah Roazi Khan, who the government says was behind the abduction of a Turkish engineer on the same project in October, said the men were being held by guerrillas linked to the Taliban’s former Defence Minister Mullah Obaidullah. ‘‘The group which holds the two Indians will announce their aims at a later stage,’’ he said. ‘‘As far as I know, they are safe and in good condition.’’

The two Indians, identified by the Embassy as Murali, a soil sampler and Vardharai, a foreman, were abducted in the province of Zabul on Saturday. Both are 24 and are employed by BSC-C&C JV, an Indian firm contracted to Louis Berger Group Inc, the US company leading the project to renovate the Kabul-Kandahar road. An Indian Embassy official said it had heard no word from the kidnappers: ‘‘There has been no contact at all.’’

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Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Omar Samad also said there had been no contact. ‘‘We are looking into this seriously and are hoping to find any information we can,’’ he said. ‘‘We have to wait and see who we are dealing with. But as a matter of principle, this government does not negotiate with terrorists.’’

Mullah Roazi also said the Taliban carried out a bombing in the centre of Kandahar on the weekend, which wounded 18 people. He said the attack had been intended for US soldiers, but a mistake meant only Afghans were hurt. On Saturday, another Taliban official had denied that the group carried out the attack.

Officials in Kandahar said five locals had been arrested in and around the city in connection with the blast, several of whom were relatives of the renegade policeman who threw a grenade in the same marketplace last Wednesday, wounding two US soldiers.

The Indian workers were abducted in the same Shah Joy district of Zabul province where Turkish engineer Hassan Onal was kidnapped in late October. Their abductions came exactly a week after Onal was released, following a month’s captivity. Roazi at the time had said that Taliban leaders, including Obaidullah, freed Onal after the government let two Taliban prisoners go, but Kabul denied any deal was made. Roazi also said the main reason Onal was freed was that he was Muslim. The kidnapping of the Indians is yet another blow to the road project, which has been hit by a wave of deadly attacks. The US has vowed to finish by the year end what is the largest reconstruction scheme launched since the overthrow of the Taliban.(Reuters)