Blindfolded, chained and shunted about

 

The priest spent the first eight days in a cave atop a hillock, chained.

New Delhi, 25 Feb 2015: Barely 10 days into captivity, Fr. Alexis Premkumar Antonysamy’s gun-wielding Taliban captors gave him hope that he would soon be released as negotiations had begun. But, the wait kept getting longer and he remained in confinement, shifted from one place to another, blindfolded and chained, for the next seven months.

 

On June 2, 2014, Fr. Alexis had stepped out of his residence in Herat after a fortnight. “I had received warnings from the Indian Consulate in Herat which had already been attacked [May 23]. Even the locals in Sohadat [where the abductors struck], had sensed that the Taliban might target Indians,” he told The Hindu.

 

 

Fr. Alexis, Afghanistan’s Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) director had booked a ticket for visiting Bamiyan and Dai Kundi. His flight, however, was cancelled and he stepped out thinking that the local people were under the impression that he was already travelling.

 

In the hot summer afternoon, Fr. Alexis was at a JRS-sponsored school about 35 km from Herat city when the abductors came looking for “the foreigner.”

 

“Around half past noon, when the children had left and the staff was about to, I saw a vehicle with four armed men approaching. I just knew they would either kidnap [me] or attack. We ran in all directions to escape, but they opened fire. I soon realised their target was very clear as I heard them ask the locals where the foreigner was,” he recounted.

 

It was all over in five minutes, the priest was put into a vehicle and threatened not to look up. “Someone had passed on the information [about my whereabouts]. They did not harm me, they were very friendly, were smiling and talking to me. But since they spoke in Pashto, I did not understand anything.”

 

‘Generous with food’

After a two-hour drive, they reached a village where Fr. Alexis was offered food. “They were very generous with food ... the whole night we were travelling. The next morning, after we halted the abductors tried to blindfold me, I objected but they threatened me, by one fellow with a gun and another brandishing a knife, so I yielded,” said Fr. Alexis.

 

The priest spent the first eight days in a cave atop a hillock, chained. “It was painful ... they kept shifting me from one place to another, some without a roof ... others were ordinary houses. I stayed at one place from eight days to even 81 days at a stretch.”

 

The first group handed the priest over to a bunch of youngsters. It was on January 15 Fr. Alexis was again told that he would be released soon, but it took a month for events to unfold. “One day they told me that the JRS South Asia regional director had met Taliban representatives in Qatar and I would be freed. The next day, we embarked on a two-day drive, changing vehicles and people on the way.”

 

Amid heavy cross-firing, Fr. Alexis was dropped at a place with the instructions to run. “They gave me a cellphone which I used to communicate with the Indian Embassy officials who finally rescued me,” he said.