Pakistani security forces yesterday recovered dozens of cadets and staff of a military college who had been taken prisoner by Islamist insurgents in the volatile tribal region near Afghanistan on Monday, the military said.
The hostages were rescued after “a fierce fight” in the Garyum area, some 20km east of the Razmak in North Waziristan district, a hotbed of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
“Seventy-one cadets and nine staff members of the Razmak Cadet College have been recovered,” a military spokesman said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“Miscreants” were transferring the cadets from North Waziristan to the adjoining South Waziristan district when they were engaged by the troops, the spokesman said.
It was not immediately clear whether any casualties were caused during the rescue operation. The spokesman said the kidnappers managed to escape.
However, a local intelligence official denied any shootout between the government forces and the Taliban.
“The cadets were released following the efforts of a tribal jirga [council] that carried out negotiations with the Taliban for hours,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The attackers, armed with assault rifles and hand grenades, captured the cadets and college staff when their convoy was moving from Razmak to the town of Bannu in the North-West Frontier Province.
Initially, there were conflicting reports about how many students had been seized.
A senior government official claimed up to 400 cadets were taken captive, while the vice principal of the college said only 50 people had been grabbed and half were freed shortly afterwards.
Meanwhile, gunmen stormed a factory owned by a senior minister of the North West Frontier Province yesterday, kidnapping eight workers and killing a guard who resisted, police said.
He quoted factory official Sharif Khan as telling police that the attackers shot dead a guard, then bundled eight workers into their vehicles and fled.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but factory chief executive Ghazanfar Bilor said he believed it was an insurgent attack.
The factory is owned by the family of senior provincial minister Bashir Ahmed Bilor, a secular party lawmaker who has survived two assassination attempts in Peshawar this year alone.
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