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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Captors free Chinese engineers, hand over to tribal elders |
| 2004-10-11 |
| Two Chinese engineers, who were working at the Dam project in South Waziristan Agency tribal agency and were kidnapped early Saturday, have been freed and handed over to tribal elders, a senior official said on Sunday. Deputy Inspector General Police Habib ur Rehman said the freed engineers will soon be handed over to the authorities by the tribal elders. Chinese embassy sources have also confirmed the release but the tribal elders have not yet handed over the Chinese engineers to the authorities. The Chinese engineers were kidnapped along with a security guard and a co-worker, when they were on their way to the Gomal Dam project site from their residential complex. The security forces had chased the captors after they were kidnapped, according to Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao. Sources said the authorities had asked Muttahdia Majlis-e-Amal MNA Maulana Mirajuddin to negotiate the release of the Chinese workers. Brig (r) Mehmood Shah, FATA security chief, said that the two foreigners and one Pushto-speaking tribesman were involved in the kidnapping. The kidnappers had made no demand for the release of the hostages. President Pervez Musharraf had taken serious note of the kidnapping of the two Chinese engineers and directed the authorities to ensure their early release. President Musharrf talked to the NWFP governor on the phone and said that the incident was an attempt to damage Pakistan-China friendship. China had also urged Pakistan to do all it could to rescue the two kidnapped Chinese engineers and called for Islamabad to beef up security for their co-workers in the country. Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said in a statement the two engineers working on the Gomal Zam Dam project had been kidnapped on Saturday morning by unidentified "bandits" and had not yet been rescued. China urged Pakistan to "immediately adopt effective measures to find the whereabouts of the Chinese workers and spare no effort in their rescue," Kong said. |
| Posted by:Fred |