Pakistan Taliban release video of kidnapped professor
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Disbanded Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Thursday afternoon released a video tape of kidnapped Dr. Ajmal Khan, the vice chancellor of Islamia College University in Peshawar, local media reported.
In the video released with masked militants wielding Kalashnikov in the background, Dr. Ajmal briefly said that he was kidnapped by TTP and appealed the government and colleagues in the academic circles to help him get released.
"I'm a heart patient and can't bear this captivity for long," said Dr. Ajmal, who was kidnapped by unknown militants from his campus residence in the provincial capital on Sept. 7.
Hours earlier, police has successfully recovered a kidnapped doctor after raiding a house in Shinwari town in Peshawar. Dr. Alam was abducted for ransom by unidentified militants on Oct. 7 from his clinic in Peshawar.
However for the vice chancellor, so far no ransom had been asked or apparently any other demands were presented by the kidnappers. "I was abducted by Taliban for being a relative of ANP leader," said Dr. Ajmal in his video message.
Local media believe that main motive of kidnapping the professor was that he is a cousin of Asfandyar Wali, chief of the Awami National Party (ANP) which rules the northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Taliban might want to use Dr. Ajmal as leverage to force rivaling provincial government to seek some concessions in near future, analysts say. In the past, insurgents have been kidnapping prominent persons to seek ransom money and or to exchange freedom for arrested militants.
In November 2009, Kohat University vice chancellor Dr. Lutfullah Khan Kakakhel was kidnapped by a Dara Adam Khel based Taliban group. He was released after eight months of captivity in June this year, reportedly in exchange for some 60 arrested militants.
But Dr. Farooq Khan, vice chancellor of Islamic University of Swat, was shot dead on Oct. 2 in Mardan. Taliban claimed responsibility of murdering the scholar for his alleged anti- Taliban views.
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