Akhtar Kohistani, an adviser at the ministry of rural development, was kidnapped in Chitral town on Sunday, a police officer said on Monday.

"Unknown people knocked at his door late Sunday, requesting to meet Kohistani," Sher Akbar, a local police chief, said.

He was forced into a waiting car and taken away.

"We are investigating the incident," he said, adding that Kohistani may have been taken to Afghanistan.

The abduction occurred in a village in the Darosh district of Chitral, which borders the Afghan province of Nuristan, he said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction and no demands have been made so far, police have said.

Abductions common

The kidnapping is the latest in a string of abductions since Abdul Khaliq Farahi, Afghanistan's ambassador-designate to Pakistan, was seized in Pakistan in September.

On Friday, unidentified men kidnapped Zia ul-Haq, the brother of the Afghan revenue minister Anwar ul-Haq, who had been living in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, police said.

A professor of Jalalabad's Aryana University was seized in the tribal Khyber region last week.

Kidnappings have risen sharply in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the country’s tribal regions, police have said.

Earlier this year, suspected Taliban fighters kidnapped Tariq Azizuddin, the Pakistani ambassador to Kabul.

Azizuddin, who was snatched while driving from Peshawar to Afghanistan via the Khyber tribal district, was released in May after being held in captivity for 96 days.

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