ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday said two of its diplomatic officials who were abducted in Afghanistan on June 16 have been ‘safely recovered’ in Afghanistan.
“President Ashraf Ghani personally phoned Pakistan’s Charge d’Affiares in Kabul to inform that the Afghan security forces had recovered the two Pakistani officials in a security operation,” the Foreign Office said in a statement issued late on Wednesday. Two officials of the Pakistani Consulate in the eastern Jalalabad city had gone missing while travelling from Jalalabad to the border town of Torkham. It was unclear as to who had been behind the kidnapping. No group had claimed responsibility.
Later in the evening, the two officials were handed over to the Embassy of Pakistan in Kabul by the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They would be flown back to Pakistan to join their families as soon as possible, the foreign office statement said.Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua talked to Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Karzai and conveyed Pakistan’s deep gratitude over safe recovery of the abducted officials. Daily Times has learnt that Gulab Mangal, governor of Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is the capital, had actively been involved in efforts to recover the missing officials. According to the information initially shared with Pakistan, a criminal gang had possibly been involved in the kidnapping in connivance with a local private driver.
Published in Daily Times, July 27th 2017.
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