Daily Times

Islamabad/Landi Kotal: 20-year-old Khan* is among 17 men who spent five months moving from one base camp of Jamaatul Ahrar militants to another in Afghanistan before they were released following a settlement between the abductors and a jirga of tribal elders.

Though Khan is back home, but the memories of the ordeal that started on the third day of last year’s Eidul Azha still haunt him.

That day, the group had gone to a meadow in Landi Kotal for a picnic. Everything was the way it was planned until the group stood up to offer Zuhr (noon) prayers. “Some armed men appeared and ordered us to surrender our cell phones and money. Then, they told us to come with them towards the border where the amir was waiting,” he recalls.

Khan says he and others were so frightened that they couldn’t utter a word. “We simply followed them like robots.”

Crossing the border, they kept walking but their was no signs of the amir. “They told us to keep walking. They said they were taking us for a brief investigation and will release us in a day. We had to walk for eight straight hours without a drop of water. Some of us complained and were given a beating. No one spoke during the remaining part of the journey then.”

Around midnight, he recalls, the group stopped to spend the night in the open. “They told us to pick a few stones and use them for pillows to catch some sleep. That night was harsh, though there were many more to come. We struggled with sleep.”

Some of Khan’s relatives were also part of the group. He says all of them kept thinking about their loved ones back home during the journey. “We were certain that the Taliban would kill us. What worried us how our families would be able to cope with the situation”

The journey resumed after three hours. This time, they had to ascend a hill. They kept walking until they reached a water pond. “We requested our abductors to stop so we could quench our thirst, but they refused. Instead, they passed a loaf of bread and a small onion and told us to manage with that. “Gulping that bites down the throat on an empty stomach was a tough task but we obliged.”

Khan says the group spend around eight to 10 hours in that area before resuming their journey on an unpaved path till they reached three vehicles, apparently waiting for them. Inside the vehicles, their hands were tied and eyes covered as the journey began.

“After sometime, we heard the noise of water. We were crossing River Kabul,” he recalls, saying that they stopped at the Chaknawar base camp before heading towards the MulaKhel base camp in a mountainous area.

The stay at Musakhel was for 50 days.

On the second of their arrival at the camp, they were told that a committee would investigate them soon. “We appeared before the committee one by one. We were asked about our family background.”

Two men in the group gave information to the committee which was in contradiction to the information it had gathered through its own sources. They were severely beaten up, Khan says.

Some elderly in the group suffered poor health during the stay because of the meager meals that were served to them every day. “We were given nine rotis and three plates of lentils for every meal. Poor diet affected the elderly the most.”

“Most of our time was spent praying or sleeping.”

Khan says two men in the group were taken to the Chaknawar camp, where the militants received extortion money from the relatives of those abducted in their missions. The men were taken there so they could make calls to their family to tell them about the militants demand. “They wanted Rs300 million. That was impossible for our families to provide. We are daily wagers, we told them.”

After Musakhel came Kunar base camp where most of the Taliban militant lived with their families. “There we were divided in four groups. We were assigned tasks like bringing wood from nearby mountains for cooking. We cooked our own meal from vegetables and beans provided by Taliban. The remaining part of our days were spent as per the instructions of our abductors, in prayers and recitation of Holy Quran.”

Khan says they were told to introduce themselves as Taliban fighters to the locals in the area. However, he says, the fighters in the camp thought all of them were soldiers of Pakistan Army. “They were quite hostile towards us.”

Kunar is adjacent to the Mohmand-Bajaur border of the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA). It has been a target of US drones for several years.

Khan recalls that at the camp most of the militants would remain worried about drones.

“Every night, we listened keenly to the sound made by the flight of the drones. When a drone would fly by the area, we would think of our families, assuming that it was going to target the base, killing all of us there in the middle of nowhere.”

“It was an ordeal to spend our days in fear of militants and nights under the shadow of drones.”

The group stayed at Kunar for three months. “One night. The unbelievable transpired. A militant came to our room and told us to change our clothes and get ready to be freed tomorrow morning. They returned our mobile phones and money. We couldn’t sleep for that whole night, waiting for the moment when we would be finally allowed to leave for home.”

The return trip was an eight hour journey in cars until the group reached the border and entered the Pakistani side.

The experience has left Khan and others with traumatic memories that return every now and then. In the absence of any psychological counselling, the men manage the stress and trauma on their own.

Published in Daily Times, March 6^th 2018.