Authorities on Friday released 39 Pakistanis who had been captured in Afghanistan for suspected links to the Taliban and returned to their home country. «They have been freed because they were innocent,» said Tahir Ashrafi, a religious affairs adviser for the government of the eastern Punjab province, AP reported. Pakistani investigators concluded the men, who were repatriated over the last six months, had no links with the Taliban or any other militant groups, Ashrafi said. «They had gone to Afghanistan to do business,» he said. «They were wrongly arrested and kept at jails there.» The men were among hundreds of Pakistanis arrested in Afghanistan after the Taliban was ousted following a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001. Kabul has released many of them over the last two years at the request of Pakistan, a key ally of the United States in its war on terror.
