Dangerous Place: Czech tourists kidnapped in Pakistan, officials

QUETTA:

Unidentified gunmen on Wednesday kidnapped two women tourists from the Czech Republic in Balochistan, officials said.

Local government officials said the women entered the province from Iran as tourists and were abducted from Chaghi district which borders both Iran and Afghanistan and is located some 550 kilometers west of Quetta, the main town of Balochistan.

“Both the women were from Czech Republic and entered in Pakistan as tourists,” Akbar Hussain Durrani, the provincial home secretary told AFP. “Gunmen stopped their bus in the Nok Kundi area of Chaghi district and abducted both of them.”

Durrani said women were being escorted by a tribal policeman when they were abducted. The guard was also taken captive but was later freed.

Nobody from the Czech embassy was available to comment late Wednesday but Qambar Dashti, a senior government official in Quetta confirmed the incident.

Kidnappings plague parts of Baluchistan and northwest Pakistan, where criminals seeking ransom snatch foreigners and locals, sometimes passing their hostages on to Taliban and al Qaeda-linked groups. 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2013.