TEHRAN, Oct 6: Iran urged Pakistan on Monday to help free a group of Iranian policemen believed to be held by Iranian Sunni rebels in the neighbouring country.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi made the call a day after the Islamic Republic’s police chief said there was evidence that some of the hostages had been killed.

The Sunni rebel group Jundollah (God’s Soldiers), which the government of Iran has accused of having links with Al Qaeda, abducted 16 policemen in June and has said it killed at least four of them.

“Our expectation is that they (Pakistani authorities) will put more effort toward the resolution of this problem,” Qashqavi told a televised news conference.

“When it comes to terrorists and terrorism in the region, we need to fight that, all of us. This only helps peace and stability and good neighbourly relations,” he said in comments translated by Iran’s English-language channel Press TV.

The Tehran Times, and English-language newspaper, quoted National Police Commander Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam as saying on Sunday: “The intelligence services have obtained new evidence that some of the hostages have been martyred, but we don’t have any information on the exact number of the martyred.”

The rebels operate mostly in Sistan-Baluchestan, a volatile region near the border with Pakistan, home to Iran’s mostly Sunni ethnic Baluchis and notorious for clashes between security forces and drug smugglers.

In August 2007, Iran blamed Jundollah for the kidnappings of 30 people in the province. Those hostages, who were taken to Pakistan, were freed by Pakistani forces. Earlier in 2007, the group claimed responsibility for an attack on a bus carrying Iranian Revolutionary Guards that killed 11 people.

Iranian officials have said the group’s head Abdolmalek Rigi is a leader of Al Qaeda’s network in Iran.

Rigi told Al Arabiya television in August that his group was willing to talk to the Iranian government and turn itself into a political party. He also said it was thinking of expanding its operations to defend the rights of Sunni Muslims in Iran.

Iran denies Western allegations that it discriminates against religious and other minorities.—Reuters