Tuesday, May 2 2006 16:40 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: India is considering providing more armed cover to its nationals working in Afghanistan as part of fresh measures to beef up security there.

"We are contemplating fresh steps to provide Indians more security in Afghanistan in consultation with the Government there", Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters in the wake of killing of Engineer K Suryanarayana by Taliban militants in Afghanistan on Sunday.

He said steps like sending more Indo-Tibetan Border Police commandoes to give security cover to Indians working there could be worked out.

At present over 200 ITBP personnel are providing proximate security cover to all Indian nationals working in Indian-aided projects, while Afghan army and police forces look after the general area security to these working projects coming up all over the land-locked country.

Around 2000 workers are estimated to be involved in Afghanistan in projects ranging from building highways, power transmission lines, telecom, Radio and TV stations, hospitals, schools and other sites.

Describing the killing of Suryanaryana as inhuman and brutal, Mukherjee asserted that Taliban by such tactics would not be able to cow down India.

"We will never bow down to terror and not scale down our help to Afghanistan and its people in their task of nation re-building," he said.