DUSHANBE, March 28, 2016, Asia-Plus – Two Tajik nationals who were kidnapped by Afghan smugglers last Friday were released on Monday, Mohammad Ulughzoda, s spokesman for the State Committee for National Security of Tajikistan (SCNS), told Asia-Plus in an interview.
He refrained from giving further details of the incident.
We will recall that Afghan armed smugglers on March 25 kidnapped two Tajik nationals and wounded another one in an area adjacent to the border.
The incident took place in the Dashti Jum jamoat of Khatlon’s Shouroobod district Friday afternoon.
Siroj Ziyoyev, the head of the Dashti Jum jamoat, told
Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service
, locally known as
Ozodi
, on March 25 that the attackers have kidnapped two road workers and wounded the driver of the consultant for Shouroobod-Shohon road improvement project.
Ziyoyev described the attackers as smugglers.
He also denied report by some media outlets that two road workers working on the Shohon-Zighar section of the road had been killed.
We will recall that
Ozodagon
news agency has reported that at least two road workers were killed and a Turkish national working for the road improvement project was kidnapped by Afghan armed smugglers. The attackers were reportedly members of the armed group of Najeeb.
A central government source told
Reuters
that Tajik President Emomali Rahmon had ordered the government to take all necessary measures to ensure the release of the kidnapped men.
The road connecting Kulob and the Darvoz district of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) was reopened for traffic Saturday afternoon.
It is to be noted that the southern Shouroobod are is the most vulnerable part of Tajikistan’s common border with Afghanistan.
