LAHORE: Concerns are growing for the health of an American aid expert kidnapped in Pakistan with police on Tuesday unable to rule out militant involvement in the abduction.
Warren Weinstein, 70, country director for US-based consultancy J.E. Austin Associates and who had been in Pakistan for seven years, was snatched at gunpoint from his home in the eastern city of Lahore before dawn on Saturday.
He had been due to return to the United States on Monday after concluding his contract on private-sector development and economic growth in the frontline state in the war on Al-Qaeda, rife with anti-Americanism.
“The company is concerned about his health,” a senior Pakistani employee of J.E. Austin told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“He needs regular intake of several medicines. He is a heart and asthma patient. He is also suffering from blood pressure,” the official added.
Over the weekend, J.E Austin released a statement saying he is in poor health and implored the kidnappers to provide him with his medications.
“If you do not have means of getting them, please contact an intermediary to whom we can deliver the medications,” it said.
Police have drawn a blank over the kidnapping that saw Weinstein struck on the head with a pistol and driven off by gunmen.
Officers said Tuesday they would release a sketch of one of the suspects in the search for leads.
“We have prepared a sketch of one of the kidnappers,” senior police official Atif Hayat, involved in the investigation, told AFP.
“We are trying to prepare sketches of the other culprits based on descriptions given by the (American's) security guards and driver,” he said.
There has been no claim of responsibility and the most police have established is that he was targeted because of his nationality.
Questioned by reporters on Tuesday, a senior officer conceded that he still could not rule out the possibility of involvement by Islamist militants.
“We can not establish it at the moment, but you know, any thing is possible in our society,” Malik Ali Aamir told reporters in the eastern city.
“We have nothing concrete,” he added.
A US embassy spokeswoman confirmed that the FBI is assisting with the investigation and praised cooperation with Pakistan as “terrific”.
In the United States, J.E. Austin released a statement saying that Weinstein was committed to Pakistan's economic development and poverty reduction.
“His efforts to help make Pakistani industries more competitive have resulted in many hundreds of well-paying jobs for Pakistani citizens and contributed to raising the standard of living,” it said in a statement.
Washington this month revised its travel warning, saying that Americans throughout Pakistan have been kidnapped for ransom or for personal reasons.
On July 1, a Swiss couple were seized while on holiday in Baluchistan, a sparsely-populated southwestern province bordering Iran and Afghanistan known for separatist violence and Taliban activity.
Wali-ur Rehman, deputy chief of Pakistan's umbrella Taliban faction later claimed responsibility for that kidnapping.
In February 2009, an American UN official was also kidnapped and held for two months in Baluchistan.
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