Law enforcement agencies have failed to find any substantial leads about the kidnapped workers of the UN-based American Refugee Committee (ARC), despite a lapse of two days.
All employees from the NGO were Pakistani nationals and were returning from an Afghan refugee camp in Pishin, about 50 kilometres north of Quetta, where they were intercepted and kidnapped on Monday.
“We did find some clues and are currently making efforts to ensure the safe recovery of the kidnapped aid workers. But we do not want to disclose anything until we succeed in our mission,” said Naseem Lehri, the commissioner of Quetta police.
Lehri also said that it seemed that there was a link between the kidnapping of the aid workers and the Swiss couple as both incidents took place in the northern area of the province.”We do not want to spoil our strategy by discussing the current situation because Balochistan Levies and police are working on different parameters of the case.”
“The kidnapped eight people are lower rank employees, so we are not sure that it is a case of kidnapping for ransom,” said Pishin Deputy Commissioner Mansoor Kakar, who is leading the search for the kidnappers.
Around 10,000 Afghan refugees had taken shelter in the camp set up in the Surkab area which is spread around 10 kilometres. “We did not receive any threat and do not know who is behind this kidnapping,” an aid worker of the refugee camp said on the condition of anonymity.
There were three dispensaries at the camp which were closed soon after the incident. “It would be troublesome for the refugees if the dispensaries are not opened immediately,” said Haji Allah Mohammad, a refugee who had taken shelter in the camp along with his family.
Mohammad said they were previously being provided with standard medicines and proper medical care; however, they were concerned that they would have to rely on Pakistani NGOs who, according to him, mostly provided substandard medicines.
Balochistan has been witnessing a sharp rise in kidnappings and this is the fourth incident in and around Quetta in recent weeks. Earlier, a Swiss couple was kidnapped from Loralai and after 16 days, five officials of the Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation were kidnapped from Sorange coal mines, a suburb of Quetta.
QESCO engineer Rauf Baloch was also kidnapped from Quetta several weeks ago. After a lapse of several weeks, law enforcers and government functionaries still remain oblivious about the reclusive kidnappers.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 21st, 2011.
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our media won't criticise anything done by the balochi militant groups, our anchors,columnists,bloggers and tweeps are busy in glorifying all the violence and atrocities committed by the balochi militants. our tweeps,anchors and bloggers scream and shout about the missing persons and bugti but these people have never condemned ,never done talk shows on the thousands of punjabi civilians killed by the balochi terrorists in balochistan,no interviews of the families of the punjabi civilians murdered deliberately,no compensation for the properties sold for pennies as they rushed from balochistan to save their lives.no media coverage of the ethnic cleansing of the punjabis in balochistan.