BEIJING: China said on Thursday it would take all the steps possible to ensure the safe return of two of its citizens kidnapped in Pakistan and promised new measures to protect Chinese people and companies working in the country.

Gunmen pretending to be policemen kidnapped a Chinese man and a woman in Quetta on Wednesday. The two were taken away on gunpoint in a car soon after they left the language centre where they taught, according to sources.

A Chinese woman managed to flee from the scene of the kidnapping.

“China will continue to make maximal efforts alongside Pakistan to strive for the safe return of the kidnapped individuals as soon as possible,” foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a briefing in Beijing.

“We will also take further actions to ensure the safety of Chinese individuals and organisations in Pakistan,” he said.—Agencies

Saleem Shahid adds from Quetta: Even though law enforcement personnel carried out a number of intelligence-based raids in various parts of Balochistan to recover the kidnapped Chinese citizens they failed to trace their whereabouts on Thursday.

Talking to Dawn, Balochistan’s inspector-general of police, Ahsan Mehboob, confirmed that no clue about the Chinese pair had been found so far.

“According to some intelligence agency reports, the kidnappers are still hiding somewhere in Quetta and have not succeeded in moving the abductees out of the city,” he said.

Mr Mehboob said the woman who managed to flee from the kidnappers told him that she was waiting for a rickshaw after having a meal at a restaurant with the abducted Chinese pair when the three were forced to get into a car.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2017