PESHAWAR/ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: Afghan Consul-General in Peshawar Abdul Khaliq Farahi was kidnapped on Monday and his driver was shot dead for resisting the assailants, police officials said.

In Islamabad, Interior Ministry criticised the Afghan diplomat, who has been designated to be his country’s ambassador, for breaching security protocol.

However, the Afghan government blamed Pakistan for not providing adequate security to Mr Farahi.

The Afghan diplomat was on his way to his residence when armed men overtook his vehicle near Phase 3 of the posh Hayatabad locality, adjacent to the Khyber tribal region.

The body of the driver, Khalid Khan, was taken to a local mortuary and the diplomat’s vehicle to a police station. No militant group claimed responsibility for the attack till evening.

“The driver tried to speed away but the assailants, who were in a double-cabin truck, overtook it and blocked its way,” said an eye-witness.

He said he had seen the armed men bundling two men into their vehicle and killing the driver at point-blank range.

According to police, only the diplomat was kidnapped.

An elderly man, who had seen the incident, was whisked away by police for interogation.

A visibly perturbed Capital City Police Chief, Dr Mohammad Suleman, told reporters that the security plan would be reviewed in view of the situation in Peshawar and other parts of the province.

Terming the Monday’s incident unfortunate, he said: “We have provided guards at the diplomat’s residence but it appears that he was travelling without a guard,” he said, adding that they were trying to locate him.

Some employees of the Afghan consulate in the Peshawar Cantonment told Dawn that Mr Farahi had left for his residence after 2pm with his driver, adding that no-one else was accompanying him.

They said that they had no information if the consulate or Mr Farahi had received any threat from any group.

Mr Farahi was posted in Peshawar after the fall of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. He was recently nominated as Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan and was expected to take charge of his office next week.

The entry and exit points to Hayatabad are unguarded and that could be the reason the kidnappers managed to take away the diplomat with ease.

On Aug 27, the bullet-proof jeep of US consulate’s principal staff officer Lynee Tracy was attacked by some people near her residence in the University Town. She escaped unharmed.

Despite a thorough investigation by local police and a team of US investigators it could not be ascertained who had attacked the US official.

On Feb 11, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin was kidnapped with his bodyguard and driver in Jamrud.

“The diplomat did not follow government’s instructions and travelled without security cover,” Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik said in Islamabad.

Reports from Kabul said that the Afghan government had conveyed its concerns to Pakistan about the kidnapping and the “unsatisfactory security cover”.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Gilani condemned the kidnapping and directed the interior ministry to provide additional security to foreign missions.

In a statement issued by the Foreign Office, Pakistan assured Kabul and the family of Mr Farahi that it was taking steps for his safe and early recovery.

AFP adds: The Afghan foreign ministry called in the Pakistan’s charge d’affaires to express concern about the abduction of ambassador-designate Farahi. “We demanded the Pakistani government to do their utmost to free our diplomat,” ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said.