J&K police uncover fresh evidence that the Western hostages are alive

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

Police officials on the trail of the four hostages in the custody of the Al Faran group have located the owner of a house in which they were held for six days last May.

A top police official, who debriefed the house-owner, said the hostages, Donald Hutchings of the United States, Britons Keith Mangan and Paul Wells and German Dirk Hasert, along with their captors stayed in the house situated in Kuzuz village in Kishtwar tehsil of the hilly Doda district.

The owner of the house confirmed that at that point in time, the hostages appeared hale and hearty, and that they appeared to have developed a sort of working relationship with their captors.

The officer attributed the 'working relationship' to the phenomenon known as the Stockholm Syndrome - by which captives, during a prolonged period in custody, tend to develop a bond with their captors.

Interestingly, police officials on another assignment had landed in the village just a day after the Al Faran militants and their hostages had left the area. It was then that a senior police official -- the same one who spoke to Rediff On The NeT -- chanced on the landlord, and learnt that the hostages had been there just 24 hours previously.