MULTAN, Aug 7: Work on the under-construction Kachhi Canal has been hampered for the last two days in Rajanpur district after the alleged kidnapping of some workers of a construction company.

As many as 52 workers of the D-Baloch Construction Company were reportedly abducted by the Gurchani tribesmen at gunpoint from Lundi Saida area on Sunday from their Meerapur camp. The tribesmen allegedly also took away different types of earthmoving machinery with them.

Reports reaching here from Rajanpur revealed that some 37 of the abducted were later released by the alleged kidnappers, but after giving them a sound thrashing. The released workers informed the company management about the incident. At this, company’s Meerapur project director Rehmatullah Solangi approached the Rajanpur district administration, including district coordination officer Samiullah Abid and district police officer Maqsoodul Hasan.

Company’s spokesperson Mian Tariq Mehmood told Dawn that the Rajanpur administration remained indifferent until they sought help from the Dera Ghazi Khan office of a federal government intelligence agency. Quoting freed workers, he said the abductors were being led by Shahid Gurchani, a senior official of the Border Military Police. He said the kidnappers had initially demanded a ransom of Rs15m for their release.

The BMP is responsible for maintaining law and order in the tribal belt adjacent to Balochistan which runs along the eastern side of the Suleman Range in Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur districts. The key posts in BMP are traditionally held by the so-called tribal nobility of the Mazari, Leghari, Dreshak, Khosa, Kasrani, Bozdar, Lond, Kithran and Gurchani tribes.

Mian Tariq said that the police however refused to chase the ‘culprits’ in the tribal belt on the excuse that it was the BMP domain. At this, the labour of the construction company blocked the Indus Highway near Fazalpur on Sunday night for the recovery of their colleagues. Later, the company’s officials based on Quetta Road near Dera Ghazi Khan also resorted to the same course of action.

Their protest suspended the inter-provincial traffic both on Indus Highway and the Quetta Road for a couple of hours. In the meanwhile, the alleged kidnappers released 13 more workers.

Accused Shahid Gurchani later told the authorities that there was a case registered with a BMP post against the construction company workers for loading gravels and stones illegally from the lands of his brother Amjad Gurchani.

The construction company’s spokesperson contradicted the accusation, terming registration of the case (if any) an afterthought on the part of the accused BMP official to cover up his highhandedness. He said his company would completely suspend working on the Kachhi Canal project if the remaining workers were not recovered within 24 hours after the registration of a kidnap for ransom case against Shahid Gurchani.

Rajanpur DCO Samiullah Abid however claimed that the issue had been resolved amicably. “No one has so far come to me with an application to lodge a case against Shahid Gurchani for kidnapping the construction company officials,” was his answer when asked about the company’s demand for registration of the case.

The construction company’s spokesperson, Mian Tariq, said he himself remained at the Rajanpur DCO’s office for four hours from 2pm to 6pm along with the application for the registration of the case but to no avail. “We will approach the DCO again on Tuesday for the registration of the case,” he added.

He said that during his stay at the DCO office, Shahid Gurchani and his brother Amjad Gurchani were also there and they kept on threatening him and his colleagues with dire consequences in the presence of Mr Samiullah Abid. He said seeing the attitude of the Rajanpur admistration, his company was also thinking to pay ransom for the release of its two workers.

He said the Gurchani tribesmen were used to obtain a ‘forced tax’ of Rs 1,000 per truck from the company. He said the company had recently refused to pay the tax when the Gurchanis raised it to Rs 1,500 per truck.

It may be added here that the Rangers have recently whisked away a Rajanpur BMP official from his residence in Dera city in a broad daylight operation reportedly to interrogate him for his suspected links with Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti. The official also belongs to the Gurchani tribe.

The Gurchanis are said to be the allies in local politics of Sardar Nasrullah Dreshak, the chief whip of the ruling PML in the National Assembly.

The D-Baloch Construction Company is working on KC-4 and KC-6 sections of the Kachhi Canal, which together cover some 200km of the 500-kilometer-long canal being built under the water vision of President Gen Pervez Musharraf to supply water to Balochsitan from Taunsa Barrage.