Maniyappan murder: Road work will go on

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO), stunned by the killing of its project driver M.R Kutty by the Taliban, has sent a strong signal by orde...

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO), stunned by the killing of its project driver M.R Kutty by the Taliban, has sent a strong signal by ordering its 290-strong contingent deployed around Kandahar to continue work on the landmark 218-km highway project that will provide Afghainstan its shortest access to Arabian sea.

Following the killing, sources said, the team was now protected by close to 300 additional internal security guards provided by the Afghan government. It has commenced work on the trade route but is temporarily staying clear of about six isolated pockets in the Gurguri-Minar segment.

Kutty, with the BRO for 12 years, was working as a general duty logistics driver. His work involved movement of workers, officials and material between nodal points in the Nimroz sector for the Indo-Afghan friendship project. He was driving a Maruti van when he was abducted on Saturday.

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The 218.71-km Delaran-Zaranj highway project will connect a trans-border bridge with the Melak-Chabahar road in Iran to provide Afghanistan its shortest access to an Arabian Sea port. The Melak-Chabahar road in Iran is being upgraded by Iran. With levelling of geographical features including dunes and hillocks along the Afghan side virtually complete, the BRO team will commence work on laying the two-lane expressway till the Iranian border.

Principally, the highway from Delaran to Chabahar port will breathe life into Afghan trade dynamics by bringing down Kabul’s dependence on Pakistan for access to Karachi port. It will bring down distance to the Arabian Sea by nearly 900 kilometers.

BRO officials were unwilling to comment on the progress of the work though out of Rs 377 crore sanctioned by the NDA government on February 4 last year for the project, close to Rs 100 crore has been utilised.

Initially scheduled for completion by the end of this year, the new deadline is mid-2006, which the BRO expects to keep. BRO DG Lt Gen K.S. Rao is likely to visit Kabul and Kandahar shortly to see the new security measures for his personnel, some of whom are shaken by the gruesome incident.

Some reported foreign kidnappings in Afghanistan

		The killing of Kutty is another in a history of kidnappings and slaying of foreigners in Afghanistan by the Taliban. • November 2003: Turkish engineer Hassan Onal is released by Taliban kidnappers after a month’s captivity. Onal was seized from a US-funded highway project on October 30. • December 2003: Two Indians kidnapped while working on a US-funded road project. Released unharmed. • March 2004: One Turk is shot and a second kidnapped in an attack in southern Afghanistan. They had been working on the Kabul-Kandahar highway. The kidnapped Turk was later released. • November 2004: UN workers Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland, Shqipe Hebibi from Kosovo and Filipino diplomat Angelito Nayan are freed four weeks after they were abducted at gunpoint in Kabul. A Taliban splinter faction, Jaish-E Muslimeen (Army of Muslims), claimed to have held them. • December 2004: A Turkish engineer working on a road-building project between Jalalabad and Kunar is kidnapped. The Interior Ministry later said the body of a kidnapped Turkish construction engineer had been found in eastern Afghanistan. • May 2005: Clementina Cantoni, an Italian working for CARE International, an aid agency, seized by gunmen in Kabul. She was released unharmed after more than three weeks. • August 2005: David Addison, a British engineer, and his Afghan interpreter are kidnapped when gunmen attacked a convoy in the western province of Farah and killed three police escorts. Addison’s body was found on September 3. Taliban rebels said they killed him. • November 2005: Taliban guerrillas kidnap P.M. Kutty, a driver with India’s Border Road Organisation, from the Khash Rod district of Nimroz province. He was killed on November 22 after a deadline passed for his company to pull out of Afghanistan.

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