Swiss hostages ‘end up’ in FATA

A Swiss couple kidnapped in Pakistan has been smuggled into the lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border, a notorious haven for Taliban and al Qaeda, an official said Monday. Olivier David Och, 31, and Daniela Widmer, 28, were abducted on Friday while driving though sparsely populated Balochistan province.
“We have information the Swiss couple have been shifted to the tribal areas,” provincial Home Secretary Zafarullah Baloch told AFP. Baloch said the couple were probably transferred through the southwestern town of Zhob, but did not specify where precisely they were likely to be now. He said searches would continue in Balochistan and that it was still unclear whether they were kidnapped by criminals or militants. Och is a policeman in canton Bern, while Widmer is a former policewoman from the same force, but a Bern police spokeswoman stressed: “They were travelling in Pakistan in a private capacity.” The couple’s blue Volkswagen van was found abandoned in Killi Nigah after they were snatched in Loralai district, around 170 kilometres east of Quetta. According to visas stamped in their passports, they entered Pakistan from India on June 28.
Officials say that so far, the kidnappers have conveyed no demands. The pair entered Balochistan from Punjab and might have been heading for Quetta, perhaps en route to Iran, officials said. The Swiss embassy confirmed that the couple had been abducted but that it was very hopeful that they would be released soon, and safe and sound. It was the first known kidnapping of Swiss citizens in Pakistan. A French tourist was held hostage for three months in Balochistan from May to August 2009 while travelling with two other French men, a woman and two children in a camper-van with French number plates from Quetta to Iran.