GHALLANAI, July 5: The Taliban on Saturday released two journalists who had been taken into captivity on Friday. The journalists, Pir Zubair Shah of South Waziristan and Akhtar Soomro of Sindh, along with their collaborator Malik Abdul Hasan, a local leader of PPP, were kidnapped from Ziarat Marble in Lakaro tehsil, some 40km of here, when Taliban suspected them to be spies.

Both journalists work as freelancers for the New York Times.

Sources in the political administration said that the political agent of the agency had formed a jirga of tribal elders on Friday that visited Kandaharo area on Saturday and hold a meeting with the Taliban for the release of the journalists.

The jirga, comprising Malik Zahir Shah Qandahari, Ikramuddin and Niaz Ali Targaray, also communicated to the Taliban a letter sent by the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists stating that the two kidnapped persons were legitimate journalists. The letter requested the captors to release the journalists because they went there in connection with their professional responsibilities.

PPP leader Abdul Hasan has also been released.