Posted on 07/30/2004 7:39:54 AM PDT by dead
Angry villagers in northern India detained 37 foreign tourists, most of them from Britain, to protest the kidnapping of three Indian workers in Iraq, police said yesterday.
The tourists, travelling in two buses, were stopped on Thursday night near Santoshgarh village in Una district, the home region of two of the three Indian truck drivers being held hostage by unknown kidnappers in Iraq.
The villagers have said they want the government to do more to get the drivers released.
The tourists - 22 Britons, two South Koreans, a Japanese, an American, a Canadian, two Swiss, two Poles, a Dutch citizen, three Tibetans and two others of unknown nationality - were returning to New Delhi from the Himalayan town of Dharmsala, said police officer Bimal Gupta.
The villagers blocked the road and the tourists had to stay in the buses until police reached the scene yesterday morning, Gupta said.
The tourists were then taken to a nearby temple complex and given food.
"They are under police protection. They will be leaving the village soon," Gupta said.
But a journalist at the scene said that hundreds of villagers had surrounded the temple, and that authorities were bringing in more police to prevent any outbreak of violence.
Una is about 300km northwest of New Delhi.
A video broadcast on Indian TV on Thursday night showed one of the drivers with a kidnapper pointing a gun to his head.
AP
These are probably indian muslim jihadists - not simple indian people.
Shoot 'em!
It would be interesting to know the religion of these Indians. hindu or Muslim?
That said, although kidnapping doesn't work on real allies, what would happed if someone kidnaps a philipino truck driver and threatens to behead him unless they deploy 1,000 troops to Iraq.
I have to think they'd cave again.
Another example of outsourcing robbing Americans of high paying jobs. I hope John Kerry will do something about this situation so red blooded unionized American drivers have an equal shot at getting beheaded in Iraq.
But seriously?
I'll wager there are very few multinational call centers in Santoshgarh Village in Una district, India.
(I was only joking about the Help Desk thing.)
If this is the same incident I saw on the Fox News crawler this morning, the tourists have been released and fed by their kidnappers.
Wait a minute....they're protesting kidnapping by kidnapping people? THAT'S bright. Are they threatening to behead them? Maybe they're just hoping for a fat ransom to change their standard of living, 'cause the terrorists showed them that kidnapping is a surefire way of getting rich quick.
http://sify.com/news/othernews/fullstory.php?id=13533637
Trouble is over-says they were escorted out-the people there were really p***ed-nothing much the government can do either ,but to negotiate & use the traditional goodwill India has enjoyed.
Released already? Good
Good news. Thanks for the updates!
ROTFLOL!
Despite the gravity of the situation, that's funny!
UNREAL
Dang, that's a great idea. We could do this.
We'd need a willing Philippino citizen to cooperate in the plot so that no crime will have been committed, and of course no beheading would occur no matter how the Philippines responds. But however it turned out, it would make a great point.
I doubt if they really kidnapped the tourists. As far as I am aware, the villagers were protesting inaction by the Indian government in rescuing the hostages. Angered villagers and relatives were blocking the road the bus was to travel through, to protest against the government. The leftist press quickly calls it kidnapping.
How well AP attempts to confuse readers.The kidnapper with the gun was an Iraqi terrorist, not the alleged "kidnapper" villagers who were blocking the road.
I called a travel website to help out a customer the other day and got an Indian..who refused to tell me that is where he was..who sounded like a broken record...and who did absolutely nothing to help. So I sorta "took over" the reservation, cancelled it and reissued directly w/ us [AA]...LOL. That'll show them! :))
[And if anything I am underexaggerating how bad it really was.]
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