Gunmen kidnapped the father of Afghanistan’s national cricket team captain near his home in an eastern city, officials said Friday, according to Associated Press.
There has been no ransom demand since Mohammad Nabi’s 60-year-old father Khobi Khan was abducted from his car in the city of Jalalabad, cricket board president Shazada Masoud said.
Police are searching for Khan, but there have been no leads or any contact since he was taken Tuesday morning, said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, spokesman for the province of Nangarhar, where Jalalabad is the capital.
Masoud said he’s spoken to Nabi, who says his family has no personal disputes and he is shocked at the abduction. Kidnapping is fairly common in Afghanistan amid the violence of the Taliban insurgency.
Nabi has been influential in promoting Afghan cricket. He learned to play while at age 10 while living in a refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan.
The 28-year-old Nabi was the architect of Afghanistan’s progress to cricket World Cup qualifiers in South Africa in 2009 and was named national team captain in March.