TRIVANDRUM, 26 November 2005 — Border Roads Organization (BRO) driver Maniappan Raman Kutty was killed by suspected Taleban militia because he was mistaken for an engineer, according to an official of the United Nations Mine Action Center for Afghanistan (UNMACA).
“Our government and the mediators failed to convince his captors he was only a low-paid employee and not an engineer engaged in the strategic road project. An engineer is a big catch for them,” UNMACA’s Finance Manager Joseph Paul, who also hails from Kerala, told Arab News by telephone from Kabul.
“We all walk freely on Afghan roads and Afghans are very friendly to us. We don’t have any such threat,” Paul said. “A genuine appeal would have saved the poor man’s life. Our diplomatic mission bungled there. We were too slow in our response.”
“Indian authorities did nothing to secure his release. Ambassador Rakesh Sood was sitting in Kabul and everything was left to junior officers in Kandahar. No sincere effort was made to establish contacts with the Taleban,” he said. “Everyone waited for the 48-hour deadline to expire. They thought Taleban would extend the deadline. But they were mistaken,” Paul, who has been in Afghanistan for the last 14 months, added.
He said he strongly believed that Taleban’s sponsors in Pakistan orchestrated the killing to stop construction of the strategic Zaranj-Delaram highway linking Afghanistan and Iran that is going to hurt Pakistan as it would reduce Afghanistan’s dependence on the southern Pakistani port of Karachi. The new highway will provide an alternative and secure route to Iranian ports as it reduces distance to Iran by over 1,000 km.
“Maniappan was not a martyr for peace. He was an unfortunate victim,” Paul alleged. “Taleban were gradually fading out and they were desperate to catch attention. Maniappan was an easy target. They also pinned a note on his throat-slit body identifying him as an engineer,” he said.
Indian companies are also engaged in the construction of the parliament building and the Salma Dam as well as setting up a power distribution network and devising a public transport system. Scores of Indians are also working as teachers and doctors. Some 290 Indians are working on the highway project alone. In the past, the Taleban kidnapped three Indians but all of them were let off after three weeks of negotiations and apparent payment of huge ransom.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy was also hopeful that the 48-hour deadline for the Indian road builder to pull out from the country would be extended and there would be “more space for negotiations.”
On a brief from New Delhi, his office had urged local and foreign media to play down the story as international attention would embolden Kutty’s captors to demand more.
“There were two reasons for the hope. The captors did not release the picture of the hostage as they used to do and they were negotiating with the mediators even after they announced the killing at 6 p.m. We do not know what happened in between,” he later said while confirming the killing.
“We decided to kill the man because during the 48 hours of our ultimatum no one contacted us, neither the government, nor the embassy nor the company he was working for,” a purported Taleban spokesman was quoted by wire services as saying.
