Militants strike: 34 coalminers kidnapped from Kalakhel

One person released; no responsibility claims so far.

KHYBER AGENCY/ PESHAWAR: At 11 PM on Thursday night, at least two dozen militants raided the base camp of the coalmines in Kalakhel and kidnapped 30 workers at gunpoint. The armed assailants later abducted four other labourers from a nearby road in Kalakhel and took them to an undisclosed location along with the other 30.

The incident occurred in the Kalakhel area of Khyber Agency’s Bara subdivision.

The gunmen also torched tents, machinery and generators before they made their escape, sources told The Express Tribune.

The abducted labourers hail from Swat, Kohistan and Shangla areas of Malakand Division.

Kalakhel political Tehsildar Ghuncha Gul confirmed the incident and told The Express Tribune that one of the gunmen entered the temporary residential estate of the mine workers in Kalakhel, bound them with a rope and shoved them into get-away vehicles.

One of the abducted workers, Islam Gul, was released by the abductors since he was an asthma patient and unable to walk on foot from Tor Sapar Mountains near Darra Adamkhel, a semi-tribal area.

“About a dozen militants kidnapped about 30 miners and four labourers, working on a road, at gunpoint,” a local elder said, requesting anonymity.

There are approximately 55 coalmines in the Kalakhel area of Bara Tehsil, and most of the mines provide lodging to miners in the vicinity, which is where they were abducted, the elder said.

The miners were told to “quietly” follow the militants, “without creating a fuss”, a source told The Express Tribune.

However, according to the elder, almost all mines in the area have registered workers and no one else is allowed to enter the vicinity without registration.

The area where the incident took place is secluded and situated close to the mountains – even the government has no hold in this remote area, a source said.

No one has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping so far.

Tribal elders had earlier said that some months back, security forces had closed down these coalmines to pressure the Kalakhel tribesmen to form a lashkar against militants who were using the area for their movement.

Ever since, the Kalakhel tribesmen have been facing the wrath of militants, with three attacks carried out against them – the latest being an attack on a Kalakhel-bound school bus that killed at least five persons and injured more than a dozen others on September 13.

This was the second kidnapping incident over the past few months, where miners belonging to Shangla were picked up. Earlier, about 20 miners working in coalmines were kidnapped by suspected militants in Akhurwal area of the semi-tribal Darra Adamkhel region of FR Kohat, nearly four months ago. About 16 of these miners were released on August 16, after a jirga was set up to negotiate between the tribal elders and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Tariq Group.

The remaining four miners were released by a lashkar of Kokikhel tribe from Tirah area of Khyber Agency, after clashes erupted between the TTP Tariq group and Kokikhel tribesmen.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st,  2011.