Two Chinese kidnapped in Pakistan

Armed men pretending to be policemen kidnapped two Chinese language teachers in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Wednesday, provincial officials said, an attack likely to raise concerns in Beijing about its huge investment plans.

The Chinese embassy in Pakistan later confirmed the kidnapping of two Chinese nationals by unknown gunmen in the country’s southwest Quetta city.

An official from the Chinese embassy told Xinhua that they are trying to get more details about the incident and the abducted persons. Meanwhile they have urged the Pakistani side to rescue the abductees as quickly as possible, said the official.

Anwar ul Haq Kakar, a Baluchistan government spokesman, said men pretending to be police officers kidnapped the Chinese teachers and wounded a passerby who tried to stop them.

“A Chinese couple has been kidnapped,” Kakar told Reuters, adding that officials had earlier mistaken the wounded passerby for a security guard.

“[ The passerby] inquired why they were doing this and they said they were from a law enforcement agency, but when he asked for their identification cards, they shot him,” added Kakar.

No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, but in the past Islamist militant groups have kidnapped foreigners inside Pakistan for ransom or publicity for their cause.

Quetta police chief Razza Cheema said another Chinese woman narrowly evaded the kidnappers outside a language center in Jinnah, near the international airport on the city’s outskirts.