Armed men abduct 2 Chinese teachers near Pakistan's Quetta

Pakistani soldiers stand guard at the site where a Chinese couple was kidnapped in Jinnah on the outskirts of Quetta, May 24, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Armed men disguised as policemen have abducted two Chinese language teachers near Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta.

Anwar ul Haq Kakar, a Balochistan government spokesman, confirmed on Wednesday that a "Chinese couple" had been kidnapped when they were coming out from a language center in Jinnah, near the international airport on the outskirts of Quetta.

Kakar said the men who were pretending to be police officers also injured a passerby who attempted to stop them from kidnapping the Chinese couple. He said officials had earlier mistaken the injured passerby for a security guard.

The Balochistan government spokesman also explained that the passerby had asked the men why they were "doing this." The fake officers had replied that they were from a law enforcement agency, Kakar added. The men, however, shot the passerby and injured him when asked for their identification cards, the official said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping but it has the hallmark of Takfiri militant groups who have, in the past, abducted foreigners inside Pakistan for ransom or publicity for their cause.

A man injured during the kidnapping of two Chinese language teachers by unidentified gunmen lies on a hospital bed in Quetta, Pakistan, May 24, 2017. (Photo by Reuters)

The Chinese embassy in Islamabad confirmed the kidnapping.

Another Chinese woman narrowly evaded the kidnappers outside the language center, said the city's police chief, Razza Cheema.

"Armed men took the couple into custody at gunpoint when they were coming out from the center," Cheema said.

Balochistan, a territory rich in oil and gas that borders Iran and Afghanistan, has been plagued by regular attacks by militants. The province is rife with separatist, extremist and sectarian violence and has been the scene of numerous terrorist attacks over the past years. Hundreds of Shia Muslims from the Hazara community have been killed in such attacks.

Sensitivities about the security of the region have increased since China began to construct the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, an ambitious project in Balochistan which will link the western Chinese province of Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea via Pakistan.