ISLAMABAD, Dec 20: The Taliban have offered to release the two Indian engineers kidnapped two weeks ago in exchange for 50 militants, a report said here on Saturday.

“We have received a letter from the Taliban in which they want freedom of 50 detained militiamen to release two Indian engineers,” Baz Muhammad, who is in charge of Zabul province’s Shahjoy district, told the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP).

“We would never set free the Indians without the release of our men,” Baz Mohammad quoted the Taliban as saying.

Both Indians, who were working on the Kabul-Kandahar highway project, are being held by Taliban commanders Maulvi Muhammad Alam and Maulvi Ahmadullah in Khak-i-Afghan in the Daychopan mountains the north of Zabul, Baz Muhammad said.

The two were kidnapped on Dec 6, 2003.

Baz Muhammad said that no key Taliban leaders were among those being sought by the kidnappers.

He said that most of those the Taliban wanted exchanged “are in Shibergan prison”.—AFP