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Militants ambushed a vehicle in restive northwestern Pakistan and abducted 16 laborers working on a mining project, police and two security officials said.
The insurgents also burned the vehicle that had been carrying the workers on a narrow road in Lakki Marwat district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, police officer Mohammad Ijaz said.
The attack occurred as the laborers were traveling from Lakki Marwat to a nearby mining project, Ijaz said. He gave no further details.
Other security officials said the mining project where the men worked is related to the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, but that the abducted laborers are not its employees.
Hours later, militants sent a video to journalists, showing some of the abducted laborers. In the video, one of the men was seen urging authorities to accept the kidnappers’ demands for their release, but it was unclear what those demands were.
There was no immediate claim for the abduction, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, which have stepped up attacks on security forces and civilians in recent months.
The latest attack came a day after dozens of armed Baloch separatists seized a government office, robbed a bank and partially burned a police station in a remote district in southwestern Pakistan before fleeing when security forces arrived, police said Thursday.
