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Abducted German tourist untraced in Kargil

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

A German embassy team returned to New Delhi after a detailed briefing by Jammu and Kashmir officials on the abduction of a German tourist in Kargil last week.

The team -- consisting of German diplomat Loeterich Williams, Frank Vordes Goltz and G S Sachdeva, the legal advisor to the embassy -- met J&K Chief Secretary Ashok Jaitley, Director General of Police Gurbachan Jagat, the state intelligence chief and other officers.

The police told the team they had no confirmation if the tourist was indeed abducted. "We told them we got the information about the abduction during the interrogation of a truck driver, Nazir Ahmad Bakshi," a police officer told rediff.com

Gunmen first killed three Buddhist monks at Raungdom and later abducted the tourist, Harfuth Roles, before escaping aboard Bakshi's truck. The driver was arrested later by the Ganderbal police from his home in Nunar village on the Srinagar Leh road. Bakshi handed over the German tourist's baggage which he left on the truck after his abduction. No militant group has so far admitted responsibility for the incident.

The embassy team also met the truck driver before their departure for Delhi. Sources said the Kargil police has been searching areas around Zanskar where the tourist stayed before he left Padam on July 11, without success so far.

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