Fate of kidnapped Indian telecom engineer still not known

New Delhi, Apr 29 (UNI) The fate of the Indian telecom engineer who was kidnapped by the Taliban in Southern Afghanistan yesterday, is still not known.

The Indian national, working on Afghanistan's mobile phone network for a Bahraini company, was abducted yesterday at about 1700 hrs local time (1800 hrs IST) on the Kabul-Kandahar highway in Sharjoy district of Zabul province.

Gunmen stopped his car while he was travelling to Ghazni and kidnapped him and his Afghan driver. Later, Taliban militants called up some newspapers offices in Kabul and claimed that they had abducted the Indian national.

They had said his fate would by decided by high Taliban authorities.

He is the third Indian national who has been seized by the Taliban in Afghanistan during the past four months.

Maniappan Raman Kutty, a Border Roads Organisation (BRO) engineer working on the Zaranj-Delaram road project, was kidnapped by the Taliban in November last year. His body was found three days later.

In February this year, an Indian engineer Bharath Kumar working with a Turkish company, was killed in bomb explosion.

After Kutty's killing, India raised the matter of the security of its nationals working on various projects in Afghanistan with the Afghan government.

The matter was also discussed with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai during his recent state visit here. He assured the Indian government that Kabul would take adequate measures for the security of Indians working in Afghanistan.

UNI RB RR KN1426