Six crew members of a Pakistani government helicopter which crash-landed in Afghanistan’s volatile east have been released, an official said Saturday, after they were taken hostage by the Afghan Taliban.
The crew “was released in an inter-tribe exchange on the Pakistan-Afghan border (and) arrived in Islamabad today,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said in a statement.
He did not specify who had been holding the crew hostage nor what kind of exchange had secured their release. All six people — five Pakistanis and a Russian navigator — are “safe and in good health,” he said, adding that the helicopter belonged to the Punjab provincial government.
A senior Pakistani official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the crew’s safe return.
After the Aug. 4 crash, local authorities in Afghanistan said that the six-person crew had been taken hostage by the Afghan Taliban.
Militants set the Mi-17 transport helicopter on fire and took the crew to a Taliban-controlled area after it made an emergency landing in Logar province.

Source: Arab News