The family members of Alexis Prem Kumar, the Catholic priest from Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu, who was abducted by suspected Taliban activists in Zenda Jan district in Afghanistan, are sore and upset over the ‘indifference’ of the External Affairs Ministry even after 72 hours of the incident. “Nobody from the Union or State Governments have contacted us after the kidnapping of Alexis,” Albert Manoharan, elder brother of Alexis told The Pioneer from Kodaikanal over telephone.
The family members of the abducted priest called on the district collector of Sivaganga on Tuesday. “The collector promised us to do the needful. We also got in touch with the Sivaganga MP and informed him about the incident,” said Albert Manoharan.
According to Albert Manoharan, his brother is a priest with the Society of Jesus, a sect in the Catholic Church. “He was appointed director of the Church-sponsored Jesuit Refugee Service, a non-governmental organisation and was deputed to work among the refugees in Afghanistan on March 6,” he said. But Manoharan was not aware of the kind of work being done by the Catholic priest in the Taliban-dominated Afghanistan which is governed by stringent Islamist laws. Alexis was an anthropologist besides being a theologist.