Taliban claims executing Indian engineer

KANDAHAR (Afghanistan)—Taliban guerrillas have killed an Indian road engineer after his company failed to meet an ultimatum to cease operations in Afghanistan, a spokesman for the militants said on Tuesday.
P.M. Kutty was shot dead on the orders of the Taliban’s council at 6:00 p.m (1230 GMT), after a deadline passed for his company to pull out of Afghanistan, Qari Mohammad Yousuf told reporters. “Since the Indian company did not listen or reply to our response, we killed the Indian engineer,” Yousuf said by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.
Kutty, an engineer with state-run Border Roads Organization, was abducted from his car in the southern province of Nimrozon Saturday along with his local driver and two guards. The Taliban spokesman said details would be given later on where to find the body.
He said the driver has been freed, but the Taliban council had still to decide on the fate of the two guards. An Indian embassy official in Kabul said he had no information about the report, and a Foreign Ministry official in New Delhi declined to comment.
New Delhi has good relations with Kabul and is involved in several reconstruction projects, on which hundreds of Indians are working. Two Indians kidnapped by suspected Taliban members while working on a US-funded road project in late 2003 were released unharmed after nearly three weeks in captivity.
While confirming last Saturday’s kidnapping had taken place, the Afghan government has not said who was responsible. The Taliban have in the past kidnapped several Turkish and Indian engineers involved in roadworks in southern Afghanistan. One Turk was killed, but the rest were freed, apparently after ransoms were paid. In September, Taliban guerrillas abducted and killed a Briton involved in a road project in neighboring Farah province. The latest incident coincides with a rise in violence, including a series of suicide attacks by Taliban guerrillas last week in the capital and in the south, a stronghold of the Taliban before US-led forces ousted them from power in 2001.—Agencies