JAIPUR: Prakash Chandra Joshi, a 61-year-old Jaipur resident and General Manager at a cement factory in Mali, West Africa, was kidnapped on July 1 by armed assailants along with three other Indian nationals.Joshi had joined the Diamond Cement Factory in Mali just weeks earlier, on June 5. The incident is suspected to be linked to Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), an Al-Qaeda-affiliated terror group that claimed responsibility for multiple attacks across Mali on the same day.Joshi’s wife, Suman, spoke to the media and recounted the last conversation she had with her husband.“He had joined the factory as General Manager on June 5. I last spoke to him on June 30. He told us he wasn’t feeling well. We asked him to resign and return home,” she said.After June 30, Joshi’s phone became unreachable.“We initially thought it might be a network or electricity issue – which is common in African countries. But on July 2, our daughter received a call from the company’s HR informing us that he had been kidnapped. We were shocked. How could we have imagined something like this?” Suman added.According to the family, Joshi had gone to the factory for his assignments on the morning of July 1 when the attack occurred.“Hundreds of armed men stormed the factory, opened fire, and set parts of it on fire. In the chaos, they abducted three people. They left in the car provided to Papa by the company,” said a family member.
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