Massive search on for kidnapped foreigners in Bangladeshi hills

Official sources said Torben Mikkelson and Nels Hulgaard from Danmark and their British companion Tim Selby were taken hostage at gunpoint from a road construction project 25 kilometres from the hill resort station of Rangamati late Friday. Army helicopters were being used to search the malaria infested Chittagong hills for the abducted foreigners.

Another British national and his Bangladeshi driver, who were also abducted, were set free by the kidnappers to pass on the ransom demand. The hostage takers are demanding 90 million Bangladeshi Taka (about 1.8 million dollars). The kidnapped foreigners were working for a Danish aided road project in the hills as employees of a Danish company Kampsax.

Security officials suspect the kidnapping has been carried out by the rebel tribal organisation known as the United People's Democratic Front (UPDF). "We are not prepared to pay the ransom but we will rescue the hostages unhurt," said army commander Major General Fazlur Kabir who is in charge of the rescue operation.

This is the first incident of kidnapping of foreigners since the signing of a peace treaty between the government and the Shanti Bahini tribal rebels in 1997 ending a two-decade old insurgency in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The UPDF led by tribal student leader Proshit Bikash Khisha opposes the peace treaty.

(dpa)