Afghan Abductors Free Two Indians

Two Indian road workers kidnapped while engaged in a U.S.-funded project to rebuild a major Afghan highway were safe in Kabul on Wednesday after 17 days in the hands of abductors believed to be linked to the Taliban.

The workers, identified as P. Murali, 24, and G. Varadhiya, 23, looked tired and shaken when Afghan Interior Minister Ali Jalali handed them over Wednesday to Indian officials in Kabul, the capital. The pair spoke but only Murali referred to their time in captivity, and just briefly.

“We lived there well,” he said faintly in Hindi. “We were not feeling terrified. The Taliban who kidnapped us didn’t upset us.”

Jalali said the abductors were locals not related to the Taliban. “Although some Taliban leaders claimed responsibility for it, there is no connection between them and those who kept the men in their area.”

However, the governor of the Afghan province of Ghazni described a tense tug-of-war between local Taliban militants and a top commander who wanted the workers killed. The governor, Assadullah Khalid, said the pair were days from execution when they were rescued Tuesday afternoon.

“There was not some kind of military operation involved, but we used our friends to rescue them,” Khalid said in an interview. He said Mullah Abdul Salaam Rockety, a former corps commander for the Taliban militia, saved the Indians’ lives.

Rockety, a Muslim cleric who fought alongside die-hard Taliban militants until U.S.-led forces ousted the regime in December 2001, has become an ally of U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai.

During negotiations to win the workers’ release, Rockety was in the room when the kidnappers received a phone call from senior Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah, according to Khalid.

“The Taliban told Mullah Rockety and his friends, ‘They are telling us to kill them,’ ” he said.

Rockety and his supporters snatched the captives out of the Taliban’s hands soon thereafter, Khalid said.

After their news conference, the kidnap victims were taken to the Indian Embassy and then to a local hospital for medical checkups. They were expected to return to India today.

India has long supported Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, whose leaders now dominate the interim government ruling Afghanistan until its first-ever elections are held, possibly in June.

India has pledged $100 million in aid to Afghanistan, a huge sum from a country that itself needs foreign aid to deal with massive poverty and development problems.

“Our commitment to reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan is firm and abiding, and they will continue,” Indian Ambassador Vivek Katju said Wednesday.

Khalid said Rockety played a key role in freeing Turkish road engineer Hasan Onal, who was released Nov. 30, about a month after Taliban militants kidnapped him. He was working on the same Kabul-Kandahar highway as the abducted Indians.

A Pakistani road engineer was killed and another wounded on the project Dec. 8, and four Afghan laborers died in a Taliban ambush on the highway Aug. 30. Karzai officially declared the road open last week amid heavy security, including the deployment of U.S. attack helicopters and snipers.

Khalid said the Indian road workers were kidnapped when they were driving to buy live chickens from a village near the capital of Zabol province. Taliban and allied fighters frequently clash with U.S. and Afghan forces in the region.