Kidnapping of Selsela Alikhil

Selsela Alikhil (Pashto: سلسله علي‌خېل‎), also spelled Silsila Alikhel, is the daughter of an Afghan envoy, Najibullah Alikhil. She was kidnapped on 16 July 2021 at 1.45pm in Islamabad, Pakistan, where her father was serving as the ambassador of Afghanistan.[1][3][4] She went unconscious as she was beaten by an attacker who forcefully entered her taxi on her way home, and upon regaining consciousness, she found that her hands and legs had been tied. She was retrieved around 7pm near F-9 Park, Islamabad.[1][5] Her medical report showed that she had some swelling in her brain due to blows to her head and she had torture marks on her body.[2][6][7]

On 17 July, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry confirmed that she had been assaulted and said that the government was trying to apprehend the culprits,[8][9] but in an about-turn on 18 July,[10] the Pakistani interior minister, Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad, claimed that she was not kidnapped at all but that it was a conspiracy against Pakistan by the Indian intelligence agency.[11] This allegation was strongly rejected by the Afghan Foreign Ministry, while the Indian Ministry of External Affairs described Pakistan's denial of the kidnapping as "stooping to a new low."[12] In reaction to the incident, Afghanistan withdrew its ambassador and top diplomats from Pakistan's capital until all security threats to them were neutralized.[13][14] A large group of Afghans protested against the incident outside the Embassy of Pakistan in Kabul.[15]