Indian engineer kidnapped in Afghanistan returns home

Sarang Mohammed Naeem, the 37 year old Indian engineer, who was had been abducted in Afghanistan, returned to his home in Suralpady near Mangalore in Karnataka on Wednesday to a joyous reunion with his family members.

After participating in the celebrations at his house, Naeem shared his 27-day ordeal in the tough mountainous terrain of Afghanistan with reporters and said he considered himself to be “lucky” to be still alive. For, few people, who had been kidnapped in Afghanistan, had returned home alive.

Naeem begins his story with the sudden waylaying of the car in which he and his Nepali colleague Gurong Karna Bahadur were returning to their base camp at Adraskan on the Iran-Afghanistan border from a market in Herat on April 21 evening.

Four masked men armed with automatic rifles, who surrounded their car on the highway, dragged them out the vehicle and hit him twice on the forehead with the butt of the rifle. “Next, they blinded folded and tied our hands and bundled us in the boot of the car. We travelled for about one hour on a rough road”, he recalled.

Later, they stopped the car in a desolate region and released the Afghani driver of the car. “I and my Nepali colleague were chained and forced to walk through the hilly terrain for the next five days along with the armed abductors. They carried no food and we had to survive by eating wild fruits and berries in the almost barren landscape”, he recalled.

Though abductors carried limited water in bottles. “They would give us water in the caps of the bottle”, Naeem said.

After five days of journey through the mountains, they were suddenly surrounded by a group of 10 to 15 people in a valley. “They started firing at us and we heard the bullets whistle past us. Our abductors and we had no option, but to throw ourselves to the ground. Later, one of the abductor stood up and introduced himself to the attackers and successfully negotiated for a safe passage”, Naeem said.

Next, the abductors walked to a shack in an obscure village. “Once, we reached the shack, we were blindfolded and were made to shift from one place to another in the mountains. Our hands and legs were tied in the night. We used to receive food in the form of dried bread once a day along with black tea”.

After 27 days of captivity, Naeem and his Nepali colleague were released on May 17. With the help of security forces, he reached Herat, where he stayed for a day and at Kabul for two days before reaching Delhi on May 24. He reached Mumbai the next day, where he met his wife and children, before driving down to Suralpady to an emotional welcome.
“During the time I spent in the captivity of the abductors, I kept asking the Almighty to give me mental strength to fight the situation. I am so happy to be able to breathe freely again and be with my near and dear ones”, Naeem said.