QUETTA: Armed men kidnapped eight coal miners from Balochistan's resource-rich Harnai district on Wednesday, a security official said.

A security official who requested anonymity told Dawn.com that dozens of armed militants picked up eight coal miners in Harnai’s Shahrag area.

The official said militants whisked away the miners in their vehicles towards nearby mountains. He added that the miners hailed from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

"They were working in coal mines for over 10 years", he added.

The official said a search operation was launched by security forces to recover the kidnapped workers.

However, the official stated that the forces were clueless about the whereabouts of the kidnapped coal miners.

Shahrag has rich coal reservoirs where thousands of miners have been extracting from deep coal mines. Most of the miners come from KP and Afghanistan's volatile southern region.

There has been no claim of responsibility for the kidnapping.

Militants had kidnapped seven coal miners on July 7 last year from Quetta district’s Degari area and later on their bodies were found in the area.