|
|
|
| November 18, 2002 | Monday | Ramazan 12, 1423 |
Pakistanis in Afghan prisons feel forgotten
KABUL, Nov 17: In a basement beneath a government building in Kabul, six Taliban prisoners lie listlessly on the floor in a fetid cell, less than six metres square, which has been their home for the past year.
By the light of a tiny cellar window and a single naked bulb, they dejectedly reflect on their fate since their capture on November 13, 2001, as forces from the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance rolled into Kabul.
“We are all Pakistanis. We came here under the Taliban and took part in the jihad (holy war) against the Americans who bombed Afghanistan. Then we were arrested,” said Mohammad Yasin, pulling an old blanket over his shoulders.
The men are among 2,000 Pakistanis estimated by Islamadad to have been arrested for allegedly fighting alongside the Taliban regime.
Yasin is one of around 1,000 believed to be still languishing in Afghan jails.
Seventeen Pakistani men held prisoner in Afghanistan were released last week by Afghan authorities, as part of a goodwill gesture between the two countries which has seen the return of several hundred captives this year.
The room which Yasin and his cell-mates occupy seems small, but conditions are better than several months ago when it held 15 men.
It is bare but for a rudimentary wooden plank shelf, held up with string, which carries two copies of the holy Koran.
Most of the 70 men held in this row of underground cells are foreigners, including 55 Pakistani detainees, according to one prisoner. They say they do not know how long they will be held for and receive no visitors other than permitted inspections by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
To gain access to the prisoners, it is necessary to get special written authorisation from the head of Afghan intelligence, who will send one of his officers as an escort.
The prisoners consider themselves “forgotten” since Afghan President Hamid Karzai has liberated hundreds of Afghan Taliban, many under the age of 20, whom he dismissed as “innocents”.
One inmate, Abdullah, his head covered with a traditional pakol Afghan hat, said he has lost hope of ever being released. Despite his jailers’ insistence he is Pakistani, he claims he is Afghan.
Abdullah said his ordeal began one year ago when a US B-52 plane bombed the position where he was fighting with the Taliban in the Shomali plain north of Kabul.
Injured by shrapnel in his right leg, he was taken to the military hospital in Kabul, but as his convalescence began the Taliban abandoned the city and their wounded and he was arrested and transferred to the cell.
“The Afghan Talibans were liberated, but not me, even though I am Afghan,” he moans, rolling up his trouser leg to reveal his injuries.
“My father has been asking for three months to see me but has been turned down.”
Abdullah’s cellmates complain about pains in their legs, due to lack of exercise, as well as urinary infections and the problems of vermin living in the floor matting.
Three times per day, the detainees are allowed to use the toilet, where they can wash. At night they only have a bucket.—AFP
|
|
|
|
