11. In the shadow of terror
When I regained my consciousness I found myself in a small hut, trapped. I had been made a hostage. There were some five or six more people in the hut with me. I do not clearly remember. My head had a severe pain due to attack last night and mouth was bleeding. My jacket and shoes were missing maybe the hijackers had taken it, don’t know.
“Are you alright?” asked one of the captive.
“No. Where are we though?” I asked him scratching my head.
“I don’t know. They did not tell,” replied the man.
“Then what did they tell?” asked the man.
“They asked name, family background, occupation etc.” replied the man.
“I see. What else did you notice?” I asked him.
“They seem to be terrorists,” replied the man.
“Terrorists?” I asked him surprisingly.
“Yeah! Terrorists,” replied the man.
“How do you know?” I asked him.
“They talk in Urdu,” he replied.
“Shut up! Now” I said to him turning my face the other side.
“What? What happened? What’s your name?” asked the man.
“I said shut up” I replied.
Suddenly three gunmen loomed in the room. They appeared to be Muslim. One of them shouted, “Take these people out in the sunshine”. They got us out and tied us with the poles in an open area somewhere in the middle of a jungle. There were other people too; people who were in the bus last night and some more of them. We all were tied to the poles tightly with ropes.
“Hey You! You have no right to tie us like this. Who are you people? What do you want from us?” asked one of the hostages. Nobody replied.
Someone asked again, “You do not know who I am. I am a police officer. You better leave us all.”
“You have already taken our money, our clothes, and belongings. Please let us go now,” requested another person.
“At least spare our children. They would be hungry. If you want more money I can give you but please do not harm my children,” requested a woman.
Many of them made some more requests but none of them was heard. Perhaps none of them was answered. People kept asking for their demand but none of the gunmen said anything. They just tied us tightly and left us alone in the jungle. Only two of them stayed to guard.
“Hey you, you there. I am talking to you,” said the same man who was with me in the hut.
“Did you see that? They are terrorists. You did not believe me. See, they will kill us all. Yeah, you too,” he said. He appeared to me quite mentally disturbed.
“You said they talk in Urdu but they did not talk,” I asked him.
“They do. They do but only to themselves. Not to us; you see,” he replied to me.
“I see,” I replied. I sat down quietly.
“Hey!” he said again.
“What?”
“You got any escape plans,” he asked.
“Shut up!” I replied.
“What?” he asked back.
“I said to shut your mouth up. Just shut up,” I insisted frustratingly.
“Hey! Nobody says shut up to me, you see, nobody. Now you look like an educated person so I expected some prudence from you but I was wrong because you are simply a piece of shit. And you know what I don’t need you because I myself have got an escape plan for it and not even in the hell I am going to share it with you. You hear that-I will not talk to you even if you beg…” said the man as a gunman hit his head with the gun in between.
“That’s why I asked you to shut up Einstein,” I murmured in mouth.
He was right though. I had to get out of there somehow. I was already disheartened by the fact that I had failed to make it to Aarti in time. It was already too late. Only Allah knew what situation she might be in. You can never predict when the destiny may turn upon you. Only few hours before I was happily cracking jokes with my friends and now I was a damn captive who can’t even scratch his nose. Bullshit! I looked around. The guards were still there and the people, huh, everyone’s faces were turning yellow including mine.
“Hey you, please give us food. I am hungry please,” said one of the captive.
“I want to go to the toilet. I have some problem in my kidneys. I beg you please let me go,” said an old man.
“Water, please give me water, please. On the name of god please…,” requested a small girl.
But these people, they did not care to even reply. It had already been noon and we were feeling hungry and thirsty. I myself was feeling very hungry. Never in my life had I been hungry for so late in the morning. And with the rise of the day the sun was scorching at its peak. The sunlight was falling directly on us. Already dying from hunger and thirst, the scorching sunlight was slowly murdering everybody. A few more hours passed and now my huger was at its peak. Being the lad of a rich family I did not had any prior experience of hunger. In the first moments the magnitude was low and I felt little uncomfortable (due to hunger) but slowly & gradually the pain grew up and finally I was feeling a severe pain in my stomach. Vision slowly faded down as I felt so miserable and weak and after struggling for few hours I lost my consciousness to quit fighting against the stomachache. The experience was pathetic. I could have eaten anything at that time, even grass. My head was low and I could not feel my body. Gradually the breaths had slowed down when after sometime the pain decreased. Suddenly one of the persons started to shout for help. Then others followed him and within a moment everybody started to cry for help. I too joined them and started to shout as loud as I could. “HELP US! IS SOMEBODY LISTENNING US? PLEASE …SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP” the whole jungle was echoing for help but nobody was there to listen to us. We were shouting like mad but it was all useless because nobody came to help.
After shouting for about half an hour we all were tired. People were hung with the poles as dead leaves to the trees. We all were hungry for more than 36 hours now. My health was declining steadily as a result I was feeling quite weaker now. Sometime I would laugh and sometime sob. Again laughed and again sobbed after sometime. I think I was losing my mental control; my ability to think.
A woman tied along with us suddenly shouted, “My child… she is not responding. Please somebody do something. O my god! Please have mercy. My children are dying. Somebody, help please, please….” The woman who was shouting had a three year girl child with her whose condition looked miserable. She had fainted due to weakness and sunstroke.
“Hey! Bring water please. Our children… they need it. Please somebody help. Somebody on the name of the god please, please…” shouted another person.
“Bindiya? Bindiya? … Please say something. Bindiya,” cried the mother but the child did not respond anything.
The children were dying and all just in front of my eyes and I was just watching. I could not do anything for them but just watch them dying. Shameful! It was so shameful for me, perhaps for everybody. Post noon, four gunmen came back. As they came back the people cursed them and abused them but they deed not heed anybody and simply ignored us all. One of them took out a bottle of water and poured it just before the dead child. The mother abused them in rage but they just laughed at her in return. We all were sorry for the child and her mother. Everyone’s eyes were wet but we could do nothing but watch. Watch like dumbs.
We were kept tied openly for whole day which ultimately led to worsen the health condition of everybody. I myself got fainted for hours. It had already been evening and now the sun was about to set. I woke up by the voice of evening prayers prayed by other Muslim brothers. I had never done any prayer in my life nor had I followed any holy rituals but somewhere now I had a feeling that these sufferings are due to my impious behavior towards Allah. I did not know how to do these prayers but still I just closed my eyes and prayed for the child. Soon others too joined us and they too prayed to the god in their way. The feeling was beautiful and I really felt the warmth: the feeling of his presence. At night, we started to communicate with each other. Though our voices were low and everybody there was feeling very weak still nobody was ready to give up. We were not stranger anymore but united and one single community. Prayers had united us together.
“These people (he coughs)…they are animals. They will kill us… if we do not do anything,” said a man uncomfortably due to weakness.
“He is right. We must …do something or we die,” said another man.
“One thing is clear… (he coughs) that they have not kidnaped us for fulfilling their any demand… see they have left us to get killed in the jungle,” said another man.
“That is something I do not understand… Why would someone kidnap you… and leave you to die without having any demands,” said an old man.
“I think these people are terrorists,” said the man.
“No, maybe naxallites,” I said.
“O! Now you speak. But you cannot talk to me…” said the same man who was with me in the hut.
“Shut up!” I replied.
“No I will not shut up… (He coughs) You do not know me. My name is Samuel Peter. My friends call me Sam and I am a national IQ test champion so better you talk to me if you wanna escape, you get that?” said Sam.
“You said …naxallites?” asked a man.
“Yes, naxallite. I have heard that these people live in jungles and target people like us,” I replied.
“But they do not speak anything to us… I mean what they want from us?” asked Sam.
“Maybe they would have communicated with the government and have given their terms and conditions to set us free,” I said.
“But even then they should give us food or at least answer our queries,” said the old man.
“Yeah that is something puzzling. Why are they behaving so rude to us?” I said.
“And even if they want to kill us then why do not they kill us at once. Why have they left us to die like this in the jungle?” asked a woman.
“Only God knows that” said the old man.
“Maybe we should now concentrate only to get out of here. Does anybody have any plan for that?” asked Sam.
“Huh! You said you have a plan,” I asked Sam mockingly.
“Yeah, I do have a plan and that’s the only way we can get out of here,” said Sam.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked him.
“We should keep making noise as much as we can. The more time we make noises more is the chance of being heard. What do you say?” said Sam.
“Bullshit! What stupid idea that is. We already are weak and tired. Now you want us to shout all day?” said a man.
“Not everybody together but we can do it in shifts. Look there are about 50 people of us so every single man has to make noise for half an hour, see?” said Sam.
“Half an hour? Are you mad?” said the old man in anger.
“Look old man, you do not have enough choice. Either you do or die. Choice is yours” said Sam.
“I think he is right. We cannot do anything with our hands so we must use our voices to get out of here,” I said.
After a small debate everybody agreed to do the same. So we divided the shifts to each person and it was decided that each person would continue shouting or speak anything as loud as he or she could for at least half an hour. And we did it as decided despite of cold, weakness or any other obstacle. Sometimes the gunmen used to return to see us, laugh at us, make mock of us but we did not stop and continued to make sound day & night.
It was dawn and the person before me woke me up. It was my turn to shout now. I could not sleep soundly the whole night and had caught fever. The whole body felt severe pain and throat had sored too. I could barely speak but I had to because it was my turn and I could not ignore it. But what should I shout? Anything or something meaningful. Simultaneously some memorable words of Aarti echoed in my mind. It were those days when we were in Shailpur striving for food, money, everything. Daily she used to do prayers to the almighty and one day, out of curiosity, I questioned her reason for praying.
And then she replied a very sweat answer, “It is not duty Faizan. It is respect. It is honour. It is a way of thanksgiving to God for whatever he bestowed to us. Prayer is the most powerful and effective tool to connect to the almighty. No mantra, fast or ritual is as powerful as a simple but honest and selfless prayer. It is always heard.” And hence I decided to pray to god. It also looked meaningful, as it was morning time, a prayer would have given a little more strength to us to live. I simply closed my eyes and made a simple and honest prayer to give us strength in this tough period of time.
I had tears and apology in my eyes. And I did not notice but others too were listening to my prayer. Their eyes were wet too. Then something magical happened. Everyone present there also started to pray in their traditional way. The whole jungle once again was echoing the name of the god. We continuously prayed aloud for hours. I closed my eyes and made a small prayer again, “O Allah! I know I never prayed to you. But I am sorry for impiousness. Please help us. Please shower your compassion on us. Please…o please…please”
“Who are you people? And why are you tied in this way? What is going on here?” We heard this life rejoicing voice coming from nearby and when we turned to see who it was we saw an old man (his name was Qasim al Zawahiri) and with him were about hundreds of more men with wooden logs in their hands. They appeared to be wood cutters who had come to the jungle for same purpose perhaps.
“We have been made captive. Please set us free. Please for god sake,” said Sam.
“Do not worry. We are here now. Just do not worry. Brothers please help them. Cut the ropes and let them be free,” said Zawahiri.
Hoof! We felt as if God had bestowed us a second life and after we got freed everybody just took a breath of relief. But before we could celebrate our freedom the gunmen came back and terrified everybody.
“Nobody will move or we’ll shoot,” said one of the gunmen.
“You? I should have figured it out. Who could be else other than you? Stop teasing innocent people like this. Do not you fear Allah?” asked Zawahiri to the gunmen.
“Do not come in our way Zawahiri. Did they care about it when they hunted us like animals in Saharabad,” replied one of the gunmen.
“It was not these people but the corrupt government. The riot disturbed the life of every single common man irrespective of their religion. Let them go. They have nothing to do with your sufferings” replied Zawahiri.
“No!” he shouted angrily. “Every non-Muslim, media, government, everyone is responsible for it and we will make them pay for their deeds. Let these people know how it feels to be hungry for several days. Let these people shiver in cold so that they can understand how our women and children would have felt when they had no warm clothes to cover their body. Let these people lose their dear ones so that they can feel the same pain we felt when we lost our dear ones just before our eyes,” replied the gunman. He was very sentimental as his voice was shivering while he spoke. Moreover, his hands were shaking and his eyes looked desperate for retaliation.
“You already have had your retaliation. Look at them. Do they look to you the culprits of the war? They are common people just like you and me. I beg you to spare their life. Stop this madness right now and let them go” insisted Zawahiri to the gunmen but they seemed to be unmoved by his words.
“No, nothing can stop us now and if you try to stop us you die too,” replied the gunman.
“Try it then,” said Zawahiri stepping forward to him. We got terrified. But the gunmen had already lost the battle in number game because fortunately the bullets they had were quite less as compared to the number of people there. So they decided better to back off.
“Next time Zawahiri. Next time. Your ‘innocent’ people will not be lucky every time. The jihad will continue until we achieve our rights,” replied the gunman and returned.
After they returned the police was informed and in less than an hour the news spread like fire in the whole country. Some medical aid was then provided immediately after the news caught public attention and hence the government. Meanwhile I came to learn that Lashkar (the terrorism community) was active here and had been misguiding the victims of Saharabad riots, especially the youths who ran out of the town to this area which was near the jungle. Zawahiri was one of those victims. I remembered the words Zeeshan had told me about the pitying condition of these people. Something chained my legs there and I could not help my mind leaving the place without giving at least one look to the condition of those people, after all, they belonged to Saharabad, my home city. Hence I decided to have a look at them. I asked Zawahiri if he could take me to the rehabilitation center. He did not deny.