Indian kidnapped in Kabul returns

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 23

The Indian businessman, Bansari Lal Arendeh, who was kidnapped at gunpoint last month in Kabul and then released, has returned to India.

Bansri Lal Arendeh was reported to have been kidnapped in mid-September and was released after 10 days. His release has been as mysterious as his kidnapping from Kabul where he ran a modestly flourishing business for nearly two decades that employed 10 to 15 Afghans at its peak.

Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee president Manjnder Singh Sirsa had also forcefully taken up his case and had remained in touch with the Arendeh family as well as other Hindu and Sikh families in Kabul.

It was Sirsa who had confirmed Bansari Lal’s abduction by five gunmen who forced him into a car in front of his shop in Kabul and took him away.

The Taliban had then announced that it had entrusted the case to a so-called elite team.

Now based in Faridabad after shifting from Afghanistan, the family had taken Indian citizenship, but Bansari Lal and his brother Ashok Lal kept their business in Kabul going.