Crew of crashed Pakistani chopper held in Afghanistan freed

Pakistan says six crew members of a government helicopter, who were taken hostage last week after the aircraft crash-landed in Afghanistan, have been released.

According to the reports, in a statement released on Saturday, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said that five Pakistanis and a Russian navigator were "released in an inter-tribe exchange on the Pakistan-Afghan border (and) arrived in Islamabad today.”

All the six are "safe and in good health," Zakaria added without elaborating on who had been holding the crew hostage.

However, local Afghan authorities have said that the six were held captive by the Taliban militant group in an area outside the government's control.

The development came two days after Islamabad said Kabul had informed it that the chopper crew was alive and efforts were being made to rescue them.

The Mi-17 transport helicopter belonging to the Punjab provincial government went down on August 4 en route from the city of Peshawar to Uzbekistan for maintenance.

The incident took place in the eastern Afghan province of Logar, situated near the border with Pakistan's militancy-riddled mountainous tribal areas.

SS