Army recovers one kidnapped Chinese engineer after 50 days in Taliban captivity

LANDIKOTAL : Hours before President Asif Ali ZardariAsif Ali Zardari’s return from the official trip to Beijing, the Pakistan Army on Friday recovered one of the two kidnapped Chinese engineers during their attempt to escape from the captivity of the Swat Taliban. However, the other one was recaptured by the Taliban in wounded condition. He suffered a fracture leg when he slipped from a mountain.

Military sources claimed that helicopters were sent to rescue the fleeing engineer and he was airlifted from somewhere in Matta Tehsil, where Taliban’s stronghold Peuchar is located. The sources, however, refused to disclose the exact location from where the engineer was airlifted and they also could not ascertain the name of the recovered Chinese.

The sources said the recovered engineer had been shifted to a safe location.The Taliban also could not identify the name of the Chinese engineer who had escaped. The telecommunication engineer remained in the captivity of the Taliban for 50 days.

The recovery coincided with the official visit of President Asif Ali Zardari to China. The Chinese foreign minister took up the issue of the kidnapped engineers with his Pakistani counterpart on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session last month. His deputy, during a visit to Pakistan, raised the issue with Adviser on Interior Rehman MalikRehman Malik while the Chinese embassy in Islamabad also made efforts for the safe release of the two kidnapped engineers.

Zhang Guo and Long Xiao Wei, along with their security guard Imranullah and driver Khalil, were picked up by the Taliban from Upper Dir’s Khall town on August 29, when they were returning from a tower site of a cell phone company in Khariri village. The two engineers were then shifted to the troubled Swat Valley.

Maulana FazlullahMaulana Fazlullah-led militants freed the guard and driver on September 15 unconditionally but sought the release of 136 Taliban prisonersTaliban prisoners, besides making other demands for the release of their two captives.

The Swat chapter of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) also confirmed one engineer had fled. The spokesman for the Swat Taliban, Muslim Khan, told The News by phone from an undisclosed location that the two hostages were being shifted from one place to another when they attempted to run away. “One of them is missing but our men are after him while the other one slipped off a mountain and is seriously injured. His leg is fractured. He might have died as he had fallen off a great height,” he said.

To a question, Muslim Khan said the foreign engineer had not been shot at but insisted he had met an accident.Another account suggested that the engineer reached a security forces’ checkpost after running away from the captors from where he was shifted to an undisclosed location.

There were also rumours that one Chinese engineer was ‘allowed’ to flee under a secret agreement between the government and the Taliban militants but the insurgents strongly denied these reports. “It is untrue that he has been released under any deal,” Muslim Khan insisted.

He claimed the engineer had not been recovered but instead escaped from the Taliban’s captivity. He said that the military had no role in the whole episode and didn’t recover him as it was claimed. “If it could recover them, it could have done it much earlier,” he argued and hastened to add that the two should have avoided risking their lives by making an attempt to flee.