November 16, 2001	Friday	Shaba'an 29, 1422

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KOHAT, Nov 15: The South African government detained two Pakistanis suspected of having links with Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida organization who were on their way to Mozambique with valid documents and sent them back to Dubai after torturing them for 42 hours in a small cell along with 30 other Asians, mostly Pakistanis, one of the victims, who was recently released from the psychiatric ward of the Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, told Dawn while narrating his ordeal.

Mohammad Fayyaz, son of Naik Zad Gul, said that he had a 15-day visit visa of Mozambique. He took a Islamabad-Dubai-Johannesburg-Mozambique flight on Oct 2. When he arrived at the Johannesburg airport on Oct 3 he and his other colleagues, a Kashmiri by origin, were asked by the security personnel to accompany them from the aeroplane. The intelligence officers who also confiscated their valid documents including passports, separately interrogated them.

Later they were taken to a torture cell situated under the airport where about 30 other people mostly Asians were lodged in small cells. During the interrogation the officials abused them and their country alleging that they had been harbouring terrorists. When they protested against the abusive language against their country two of the intelligence officials started slapping and kicking them. “They asked us to sign a paper, which we refused,” he said, adding the intelligence officials were extremely rude with the Pukhtoons who they thought were Afghans.

The officials illegally detained them for 42 hours during which they missed at least three flights to Mozambique. Then, first the Kashmiri was sent back and allowed to go to Dubai in the morning. There a person by the name of Mr Mark told them that the paper which the intelligence people wanted them to sign contained a declaration that you people had links with Al-Qaida and were terrorists, a pretext for initiating legal proceedings against you in the court which might have led you to spend your remaining life in prison.

Fayyaz said he repeatedly asked the immigration officials that they (the immigration officials) had no right to deport them because they had Mozambique visas and only that government could deport them but to no avail. They were not allowed to go to Mozambique.

He regretted that when he warned the officials that he would take up the matter with his government they used very derogatory and abusive language against Pakistan and said they would not allow “terrorists” on their land.

He said that in his personal diary he had a address and telephone number of his uncle who was in the United States. The investigation officials also repeatedly asked what instructions he had been getting from the US and what was their next target.

Mr Fayaz was still worried about the plight of the large number of Asians and his countrymen languishing in the torture cells unnoticed and appealed to the quarters concerned to take up the matter of their release with the South African authorities.

He exhorted the Pakistanis not to go abroad as almost all the countries, except for a few Muslim states, were under the impression that Pakistanis were terrorists and harbouring Taliban and Osama bin Laden.