PESHAWAR, Nov 23: Afghanistan, a country where 23 years’ war left a bare minimum infrastructure and communication system, has still something distinctive to show off — its postal links are intact with the outside world.
Though the war-ravaged country lost whatever little telecommunication system it had to the almost precise US air strikes which rendered incommunicado the business and trade circles of Afghanistan, the bombings hardly made any negative impact on the country’s postal links.
It was due to the Peshawar-based Bakhtar Speedy Postal Service (Pvt) Ltd., founded and run by an Afghan doctor, that the family members and friends of Dayna Curry — one of the two American ladies arrested and tried by the Taliban along with six other workers of the German-based Shelter Now International (SNI) organization — managed to convey wishes on her birthday that fell during her three months in Afghan prison.
“The birthday wishes sent by Dayna’s father and friends, through fax messages received at the US Peshawar consulate, were delivered to her in a Kabul prison,” said Dr Abdul Samad Wahaj, director Bakhtar Speedy Service (BSS) while showing copies of the fax messages.
Friends and family members of Heather Mercer — the other American arrested and tried by Taliban on charges of preaching Christianity — also relied on BSS for getting letters delivered to her in the Kabul prison.
Though the war-shattered country had a postal system catering to the domestic mail even under the Taliban regime, the Afghans settled abroad wanting to communicate with their relatives inside Afghanistan lacked the postal service facility, said Dr Wahaj, a resident of Hong Kong who is also running five health clinics in Afghanistan.
The mental agony he used to undergo when making troublesome and hard-to-connect telephone calls from Hong Kong to Afghanistan, by first dialling to Delhi to book a telephone call for Kabul, made him think about initiating a postal service for his country.
Besides, in the absence of well-equipped clinical labs in Afghanistan, a large number of patients had no other option but to proceed to Pakistan for diagnosis purposes, said Dr Wahaj. The postal service, he added, helped patients in getting the results of laboratory tests from Peshawar and in some cases even from Islamabad and Karachi.
“It did not take me long to take a decision,” said a middle-aged, bearded Dr Wahaj, who started BSS operations from Jan 1, 2001.
Some of the leading international relief agencies including UNHCR, UNICEF, IRC, WFP and non-governmental organizations extending humanitarian assistance inside Afghanistan have also been using the BSS, with between 50 and 100 packets and letters being delivered daily from Peshawar to inside eastern and northern zones of Afghanistan, said Dr Wahaj.
The US consulate, Peshawar, also used BSS facility, especially when it came to delivering letters in prison to two of American nationals who remained under Taliban custody from Aug 3 to Nov 13.
Maintaining a well-furnished office equipped with a laptop computer and other modern telecommunication facilities in one of the amazing shopping plazas of the Karkhano smuggled goods’ market here, Dr Wahaj is supervising a workforce of over 30 postmen and three office managers in Afghanistan.
The BSS kept on operating even in the trouble-hit parts of Afghanistan at a time when Taliban were retreating. Even the US bombing made hardly any difference as, claimed Dr Wahaj, the BSS postmen kept on delivering mail right from Jalalabad to Kabul and from Kandhar to Herat.
“Taliban wanted to take the BSS vehicles to transport reinforcements to their frontlines north of Kabul a week ago before they retreated from the Afghan capital,” said Dr Wahaj.
However, the local Taliban leaders later agreed to spare the vehicles but only after the BSS director appealed them that these were specifically meant to ply between Kabul and Torkham to deliver clinical results of laboratory tests conducted at the Peshawar labs.
The administrative vacuum featuring chaos and lack of security in the post-Taliban scenario, especially in areas previously held by the student militia has had negative effect even on the BSS functioning inside Afghanistan.
The postal service’s offices in several places including Jalalabad, Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat and Khost have been looted. Whereas, the office building in Kandhar got razed to the ground as a result of heavy American air strikes.
In Jalalabad, Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and Baghlan the BSS has resumed its services after a week’s suspension. Efforts are on to start operations in Herat, he said.