Now it is almost a month that 30 passengers hijacked on the Kabul-Kandahar highway are missing and the efforts made by government or their family members have not been much fruitful. They were travelling in one of the passengers buses that they were stopped by a number of masked armed-men. According to the witnesses, the hijackers were speaking a language not identical or close to any of the languages spoken in our country or our neighboring countries. The kidnappers checked the identity documents of the passengers and after identifying their identities, they separated these passengers from the rest and took them as hostages. All the 30 passengers were from the Hazara community.

The news came as a great shock as the kidnapping of 30 passengers was much alarming. Local and international media gave extraordinary coverage to this news as it was alarming from a number of angles. The witnesses described the language of the hijackers absolutely strange and it was assumed that they might be speaking Arabic. Soon the speculations were made that this might be the activity of ISIS activists as their activities are also increasing with every passing day. However, these are only speculations and yet to be confirmed from the independent and reliable sources.

This incident also shows another aspect of the implications hidden behind this tragedy. The hostages were from a specific community and it might be another attempt to divide the country on the basis of ethnicity. As expected, this incident gave rise to a wide-spread wave of discussions about ethnicities and ethnic differences. This was especially noticed on the social networking sites of Facebook and others. Though an effort was made to arouse differences among different ethnic groups in the country on the basis of this incident but it in fact, it worked in exact opposite manner and different groups of the country showed their support for the hostages and it became a reason to bring the people of the country closer to each other.

Just like the tragic incident of land-sliding in Panjsher, when Afghans from different parts of the country expressed their condolences and contributed in the relief work without any discrimination of ethnicity or region, same thing almost happened in the case of this incident. With every passing day, the awareness of general public about this incident is increasing and more and more people are expressing their support for their release and extending their sympathies with the bereaved families. It is going to be another incident that is going to bring the people of country closer to each other.

However, there are also present same sad facts in this regard. It is said that a police check-post was not much far from the point of the incident and when the road was blocked by masked kidnappers and they were checking the documents of passengers without any haste, there was good enough time for police to come into action but unfortunately, nothing was done in this regard and kidnappers were successful in leaving the spot comfortably. On the other hand, more than a month has passed but no coordinated operation has been carried out for the release of the hostages by our security forces. We have no doubt in the abilities and talents of our forces but it shows two drastic facts about the top officers of our forces.

First, they are not either interested in the search and release of the hostages or secondly, they are part of a great conspiracy in which they are stakeholders with some of the important politicians of the country. Though it might not be taken much seriously by our government but it is a shameful fact that 30 people are kidnapped by an unidentified and dangerous group of kidnappers and government either fails to do something or doesn’t show the required interest in resolving the problem. Internationally, such mass kidnappings are taken to be much seriously and the whole machinery of government is put into action to bring an end to the uncertain situation.

Very recently, President Ghani took personal notice of the incident and ordered the concerned authorities to take immediate action for the release of the hostages. We are hopeful that the message might have reached to the concerned authorities in our security forces as well and they might conduct a full-fledge search and rescue operation for the release of hostages. For a common person, the failure of our forces doesn’t make much sense.

It is impossible that a big and well-equipped army, provided with the help of helicopters as well, should fail to find such a big group of hostages. It is for sure that a comprehensive search operation with the assistance of helicopters and terrestrial forces might soon bring about some good news in this regard but it all needs the sincerity at the top level. If the top leadership shows enough interest about this incident, it would certainly affect the others as well and we would be able to receive good news in this regard. For the time being, it falls as a responsibility on the shoulders of media and civil society activists to pressurize government in this regard and not make them ignore the situation.