Authorities deny reports on kidnapped Indian

KABUL: Authorities on Friday said that no Indian has been kidnapped  by the Taliban, maintaining that all the Indians working in  a power project in north Afghanistan were safe.

Reacting to reports by Chinese news agency, Xinhua, sources in the Indian Embassy said the headcount of Indians working in a Power Grid Corporation of India project in Puli Khumri, 220 km north of Kabul, showed no one was missing.

They said they had ascertained this fact from several sources.

Sources close to the Afghanistan President also said that no report of any Indian being kidnapped in any part of the country had been received.

Earlier, Xinhua, quoting an unnamed Taliban Commander, had said that an Indian engineer working at a power project in Puli Khumri in Baghlan province has been kidnapped on Thursday.

He claimed that the engineer, whom he did not name, has been brought to the central Ghazni province, where 23 South Koreans were abducted on July 19.

However, police chief in Baghlan and officials in Ghazni said they did not hear of the alleged abduction, the agency had said.

Taliban militants have been frequently carrying out kidnappings in Afghanistan for the past two years, and some hostages were also killed by them, including two South Koreans who were murdered recently.