New Delhi, May 14
In a surprising development in the killing incident of Indian engineer K. Suryanarayan in Afghanistan last month, a Taliban commander has claimed that the Hyderabad-based engineer was killed on the direction of Pakistan. Zabul province Commander of Taliban revealed this in an interview to a private Afghan television, Tolo TV.
Suryanarayan, who was working for a Bahraini company, Al Moayed, on a telecom project in Afghanistan, was abducted on April 28 in Zabul province on the main highway linking the capital Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar, birthplace of the Taliban movement, and was later beheaded on April 30.
Following his killing, Afghanistan’s rebel Taliban outfit had said that Suryanarayan was killed while he was trying to escape.
The killing of Suryanarayan was the third incident in the past four months wherein an Indian has been targeted in Afghanistan.
The Taliban abducted Maniappan R Kutty, a Border Road Organisation jawan and engaged in building of the Zaranj-Delaram highway, four months ago.
Three days after Kutty’s kidnapping, his body was found in Kandahar province.
In February this year, Indian engineer Bharath Kunmar, working with a Turkish firm, was killed in a bomb blast in Farah province.
Indian doctors working in various hospitals in Afghanistan have also received threats from the Taliban, ousted from power in 2002.
New Delhi has taken up
the issue of security of all Indians working in Afghanistan with Kabul at the highest level. The matter was also discussed when Afghan President Hamid Karzai when he visited Delhi earlier this month.Meanwhile, a report from Islamabad rejects the Taliban’s claim that Suryanarayan was killed at the behest of ISI.
Refuting the allegation, the country’s Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, in an interview with an Indian TV channel this afternoon, is learnt to have said that ISI was “not involved in the killing” and that Islamabad was ready to “clarify the matter with New Delhi”.
— ANI
