TTP denies holding copter crew hostage

ISLAMABAD: The outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Sunday dismissed reports that one of its commanders had seized and taken hostage the crew members of a Pakistani chopper that crash landed in Afghanistan’s Logar province.

Some sections of the local and international media had reported earlier that a TTP commander identified as Adam Khan Kochai had captured the crew members.



“The news is completely baseless and incorrect that the crew members are held by the TTP Commander Adam Khan Kochai. We have contacted Kochai, who is an important TTP commander, and he has denied the reports,” the TTP spokesman Mohammad Khorasani said in a statement.

Similarly, other news reports have suggested that the TTP’s Hakimullah group is holding the crew. Khorasani denied this claim as well, pointing out that there is no Hakimullah group within the TTP.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 8^th, 2016.