Pakistan hands over 4 Jundallah men to Iran

TEHRAN: Pakistan has handed over four Iranian militants to Iran, including the brother of a Sunni militant leader in restive southeastern Iran, AP quoted Iranian state media as reporting on Saturday. The handover took place as part of a security pact between Iran and Pakistan, state television said. Jundallah (Army of Allah) leader Abdolmalek Rigi’s brother Abdolhamid Rigi was handed over to Iran on Friday night, the IRNA news agency said. “Rigi had been jailed in Quetta over the past year,” IRNA said, adding that he had sought to declare himself along with 15 others as Pakistani nationals. “But he was handed over after officials presented evidence that these people are to be prosecuted in Iran,” it said. The Rigis are members of Iran’s ethnic Balochi minority, which can also be found in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Rigi has claimed his group fights for the rights of Sunni Muslims oppressed by Iran’s Shia government. Meanwhile, Pakistan has launched a search for 16 Iranian border guards who were kidnapped by Jundallah militants on Thursday and taken them across the border into Pakistan. Jundallah has claimed a string of attacks and kidnappings in the Sistan-Balochistan area, which is home to a substantial Sunni ethnic Baloch community. The area lies on a major narcotics route from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The militant organisation on Saturday said it had carried out the kidnappings to press Iran to release jailed Jundullah activists. Jundullah spokesman Abdul Rauf told Quetta Press Club over telephone from an undisclosed location that the group would kill the hostages if the Iranian government did not release the activists by two weeks, NNI reported. Television channels quoted Rauf as saying that 12 out of 28 border guards initially abducted were released. Shia-majority Iran has in the past accused the United States of backing Jundallah and inciting unrest in its minority-populated border areas. agencies
Courtesy Daily Times