Filipina pays ransom for release of Indian hubby

A Filipina in the southern Philippines has paid the ransom demand of a terror group for the release of her Indian husband, but authorities could not determine his whereabouts, including reports that he was executed by his captors, police said. Elena Asanji, the wife of Biju Veetil, 36, a resident in Sulu in the southern Philippines, had paid P800,000 (Dh66,666) to the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), "but the ASG did not release the victim," Senior Superintendent Antonio Freyra, police chief of Sulu Province, told Luwaran, the website of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). "We have intelligence reports about this execution but it needs to get a confirmation from his wife or find his dead body," said Freyra. The wife, Asanji, has left Sulu and would not speak to the police, Freyra said, adding that residents in the area where the ASG brought their kidnap victim simply told interrogative police men, "We don't know (what happened to Veetil)." Four gunmen seized Veetil when he and his wife visited her family in Tempok village, Patikul Sulu in June last year. The ASG has held Japanese and Malaysian nationals hostage. The ASG has been blamed for kidnappings, beheadings, bombings and other terror activities in the south. It was also responsible for the bombing of a ferry that sank and killed a hundred people at the Manila Bay in 2004.