Abducted Indian's fate still unknown

The fate of an Indian engineer kidnapped by Taliban in Afghanistan remained unknown on Saturday and efforts were on to secure his safe release.

A Suryanarayana from Hyderabad, who worked with Bahraini company 'Al Moayyad' which is into telecom and construction business in Afghanistan, was abducted on Friday evening when he was travelling from Kalat, the capital of southern Zabul province, to Ghazni.

Taliban has claimed responsibility for the abduction but no demands have been made so far.

Government is in close touch with authorities in Afghanistan and the Bahraini company to secure the engineer's safe release, Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed said in New Delhi.

An official of Afghan mobile phone company Roshan, which had contracted 'Al Moayyad' to help expand its network across the volatile southern provinces, informed that his firm had no word on the Indian's fate.

"We are hoping for his safe return and we are working with the government and other relevant agencies to try and solve this as quickly as possible," the agency reported fron Kabul quoting Altaf Ladak, Chief Marketing Officer for the Afghan-registered and foreign-owned Roshan.

The kidnapping of Suryanarayana is the third incident in the last four months wherein an Indian has been targeted in the war-torn country.

Maniappan R Kutty, a Border Road Organisation jawan who was engaged in building of Zaranj-Delaram highway, was abducted by Taliban in November last year.

Three days after his kidnapping, Kutty's body was found in Kandahar province.

In February this year, Indian engineer Bharath Kumar, working with a Turkish firm, was killed in a bomb blast in Farah province.

New Delhi has taken up with Kabul at the highest level the issue of security of all Indians working in Afghanistan.

The matter was also discussed when Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited Delhi earlier this month.