NEW DELHI, Nov 27: India’s National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan has alleged that Pakistan has a hand in the killing of an Indian worker in Afghanistan after he was taken hostage there by the Taliban, The Hindu reported on Sunday.
A note pinned to the body of Ramankutty Maniappan, the Indian driver killed in Afghanistan by the Taliban, said Indians should get out of their country. “This (Afghanistan) is not India or America,” The Hindu quoted the note as saying.
Press Trust of India also quoted Mr Narayanan as telling reporters in his hometown of Ottapalam in Kerala that Islamabad ‘did not like’ the growing friendship and cooperation between India and Afghanistan. Therefore, Pakistan ‘supported’ the Taliban in this heinous crime.
India has taken up road construction in Afghanistan as a peacetime development work. The road linking India and Afghanistan will bring an annual trade of $100 millions for India, The Hindu said.
The killing would not deter the country from taking up peacetime construction work in Afghanistan and cementing its friendship with that country, Mr Narayanan said.
He added that it was unfortunate that Islamic countries had not condemned the killing of an Indian hostage by the Taliban, a “great menace to the civilised world”.
India’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Rakesh Sood, had contacted President Hamid Karzai, National Security Adviser Zalmay Rasool and the American, Iranian and Italian ambassadors in Kabul to save Mr Maniappan. It was not said if the Pakistani embassy was also contacted.
