Canadian woman killed in Pakistan

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TORONTO, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- A slain British Columbia woman is the latest in a string of bizarre abductions of Canadians in Pakistan and Afghanistan, officials said.

Rajvinder Kaur Gill, 41, who was involved in the jewelry business, traveled to Lahore, Pakistan, in late August for a diamond show. While there, she was killed and dumped in a canal, police said. Pakistani police refused to cooperate with Gill's family until her father obtained a Pakistani court's order for police to turn over the results of their investigation, The (Toronto) Globe and Mail said Wednesday.

Police there said two men abducted Gill and killed her because they owed her a sizable amount of money. One of the men is in custody and cooperating with detectives; the other remains at large.

Gill's case comes on the heels of the disappearance of a Canadian man and his pregnant American wife from a town outside Kabul, Afghanistan.

Josh Boyle and his wife Caitlin Coleman were traveling the region when Canadian officials believe they were abducted in Ghazni, Afghanistan, southwest of Kabul. Boyle had made headlines for previously marrying the daughter of a Canadian family that once lived with Osama bin Laden in the 1990s. He later divorced the woman and married Coleman.

The couple told their family they planned to travel South America, but not Afghanistan. They haven't been heard from since October.

A third Canadian citizen, Colin Rutherford, 26, of Toronto, was abducted by the Taliban while traveling Afghanistan as a tourist. An Internet video surfaced of Rutherford where he claims he's being treated "humanely" by his captors. Canadian officials said they were hopeful they will secure his safe return, but there have been no known developments in his case for more than a year.