PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police said that unidentified gunmen have kidnapped four employees of the provincial Forest Department, including a woman, in Bannu district.
According to reports, the employees were returning after monitoring tree plantation on Muhammad Khel hill in Wazir sub-division of Bannu district when they went missing. However, the FIR [First Information Report] said that they have been abducted.
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Earlier, Bannu police said that they were informed by the forest department on Monday evening that their employees were missing. Today [Tuesday], the forest department identified the abducted employees through an official letter to Bannu Police. They include a female monitoring officer, a Ranger officer, a forest guard and a driver. The male employees are from Bannu district while the female employee is from Karak district who are employees of Bannu Forest Department.
The officials said that they went missing on their return after monitoring tree plantation in the area. The officials added that since the start of billion tree tsunami campaign, the visit of forest department employees to far-flung areas is routine. The area was formerly known as the Frontier Region, but after the merger of the tribal districts into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, it was merged with the Bannu district. Police has conducted search operation and recovered the official vehicle of the employees.
In February, this year, militants had kidnapped a prosecutor and several employees of the KP health department from North Waziristan. On October 23, after talks with Jirga, led by Uthmanzai tribesmen, they were released by militants in Afghanistan.