6 NSP workers killed; MRRD slams incident

HERAT CITY (PAN): Six workers of the National Solidarity Programme (NSP) were killed two days after being kidnapped in the Gulran district of western Herat province, officials said on Tuesday.

The victims included four engineers and two drivers of NSP, a flagship initiative of the government to deliver tangible development services to rural communities across the country.

Governor Syed Fazlullah Wahidi told Pajhwok Afghan News the men, who had been kidnapped on Sunday while returning to Herat City from the district, were killed last night.

Herat provincial council chief, Wahid Qatali, alleged the NSP staffers had been kidnapped by a Taliban Abdul Aziz, who killed them in the Niamat village of the district.

The incident, the first of its kind in Herat, would impinge on reconstruction programmes in the area, he feared, regretting the captors’ refusal to heed requests from tribal elders to release the workers.

Deputy Director of Rural Development Eng. Mohammad Qasim Ayubi, said the victims’ bodies had been brought from Gulran to the provincial capital. The dead belonged to Herat, Logar and Maidan Wardak provinces.

A day earlier, police spokesman Col. Abdul Rauf Ahmadi said the NSP officials were abducted by armed motorcyclists near the district centre.

In Kabul, the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development condemned the deliberate killing of the six staff members working for NSP.

“This merciless killing of civilian workers, who were serving the needy people in rural villages, has no justification and should be condemned by each and everyone,” said MRRD Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak.

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