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Indian kidnapped, faces death threat

Special Correspondent

Taliban issues "ultimatum" to BRO

New Delhi: The Taliban has threatened to execute an Indian driver kidnapped from Afghanistan's southwestern province of Nimroz unless his employer, the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) pulls out of the country within 48 hours. The BRO is building a strategic road linking Afghanistan and Iran.

M. Raman Kutty went missing on Saturday along with an Afghan driver and two Afghan security guards while they were driving in a Maruti Gypsy. On Sunday, a spokesman for the Taliban claimed in a phone call to Reuters in Kandahar that the men had been seized by his organisation. At the time of going to press, the Chinese news agency, Xinhua, was quoting a Taliban spokesman named Qari Yusuf Ahmadi as saying his organisation has given the BRO "an ultimatum" that if the agency does not leave Afghanistan in 48 hours the Taliban will behead the Indian."

Uncertainty

When reached by telephone, India's Ambassador to Afghanistan, Rakesh Sood, told The Hindu that the local authorities were looking after the investigation and that Afghan President Hamid Karzai himself was closely following the matter. "At this stage, they are not saying whether the kidnappers are really Taliban or local criminal elements." Nor was there any information about the kidnappers' demands.

He said no message or ultimatum had been communicated to him or the embassy by the kidnappers.

Mr. Kutty is among an estimated 300 Indians working on the strategic 218 km road that will link Delaram on the main Kandahar-Herat highway in Afghanistan and Zaranj on the Iran border. The Rs. 377 crore project is being funded by India and will provide the landlocked nation a shorter route to the sea via the Iranian port of Chabahar than it now has through Pakistan.

No contacts yet

Speaking by satellite phone from Zaranj, Brigadier Sehgal, project director of BRO in Afghanistan, told The Hindu that "the people who have claimed responsibility for the kidnapping have not yet come forward to contact us but we expect they will do so soon." BRO officials said they had heard of the Taliban ultimatum from an Iranian TV station on Sunday night but had no means of independently confirming the news.

Brig. Sehgal said Mr. Kutty was from Harippad in Alappuzha district of Kerala and had only recently arrived in Afghanistan.

Criminal activities

The BRO started inducting people for the project last December and the roadwork began in January. Mr. Sood said south-west Afghanistan was a region where criminal activities were not uncommon and that it would be "premature" to see Saturday's kidnapping as part of any wider effort to scuttle the road project.

Iran, India, and Afghanistan signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2003 to improve Afghan access to the coast.

Under this, Iran is building a new transit route to connect Milak in the southeast of Iran to Zaranj in Afghanistan. For its part, India is responsible for the onward link to Delaram. The project will shorten the transit distance between Chabahar and Delaram by some 600-700 km and make Iran a more important transit point for Afghan trade than Pakistan.

`Step up security'

MEA officials have asked the authorities to step up security for the Indians on the project.

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