QUETTA: Unidentified armed men kidnapped 20 police recruits undergoing training at the Kalat Police Training Centre while they were travelling in a passenger van along the Quetta-Karachi Highway in Mastung district, officials said.

A senior Balochistan government official confirmed the abduction to Dawn on condition of anonymity, saying the recruits were heading home for the weekend when armed men intercepted their van.

“Yes, 20 police personnel who were going home for the weekend were taken away by armed men while they were travelling in a passenger van on the Quetta-Karachi Highway in Mastung,” the official said.

He said a group of armed men riding motorcycles and carrying automatic weapons intercepted the van and took the recruits away along with the vehicle to an undisclosed location. The armed men, however, released the driver and three other passengers travelling in the van.

Police officials in Mastung also confirmed the abduction, saying the recruits belonged to the Levies Force, which has since been merged with the police.

The abducted personnel belonged to the Rakhshan division, government officials said.

Security forces have launched a search operation in the nearby mountains to trace the abducted recruits. However, no information about their whereabouts has emerged so far.

No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction.

A day earlier, Rakhshan Division Commissioner Asad Ullah Kakar was abducted in Balochistan’s Kharan district.

In a separate incident, Kharan Deputy Commissioner Munir Ahmed Soomro was released safely on Oct 3 after nearly two weeks in captivity following negotiations between local tribal elders and the armed men who had abducted him from the Noshki-Kharan highway the previous month.

On July 21, three excise officials were kidnapped after an attack on a checkpost in Balochistan’s Chagai district.