I was a fourth-year student majoring in Persian literature at the university. My studies were passing by smoothly.
That morning, I had breakfast and then got busy with my studies. After my roommate and I had lunch together, I put on my black suit and went to the university. It was the boys’ turn at the university that day. The Taliban had assigned odd days to girls and even days to boys. After the class, we walked around the university campus for a while. When my friend Abdul Jalil* and I were leaving the university, we noticed a luxurious, black-tinted van monitoring and controlling students as they left the university. It belonged to the Taliban
I told Abdul Jalil, “They seem to take security very seriously today. I wonder what’s going on.” My friend replied, “Maybe someone from the Taliban officials has come to the university.” I agreed with him. To exit the university, as we reached near, I noticed four individuals standing next to that black-tinted van wearing black uniforms. Their faces were covered with black masks, which featured an image of a lion’s head with an open mouth. One of them came straight toward me and grabbed my hand, saying, “Give me your phone.” I couldn’t respond because I was too scared. He reached and took the phone out of my pocket.
At that moment, another man exited the van while talking on the phone. He glanced at me, appearing to confirm that I was the person they were looking for. As they surrounded me and put on handcuffs, my friend, Abdul Jalil, asked them to explain my crime and the problem. They said it wasn’t his business. They tied a cloth around my eyes so tightly that it hurt and pushed me in the back seat of the black-tinted van.
Eventually, I overcame my fear and asked why they detained me. One of them sarcastically said, “Oh Hazara, You’ll find out soon.” Another person removed the blindfold to have me hand over the password to my phone. As they searched my account on X. I realized they were detaining me for criticizing them on social media.
I was trembling with fear as the van slowly moved on the streets. From the frequent stops, I realized that there was heavy traffic. The van travelled for about half an hour or so. Finally, they stopped and opened the van, when I was suddenly hit hard on my face, leaving my ears ringing from the impact. They pulled me out of the van, and then, without any questioning or answers, attacked me. One of them kicked me, another hit me with a baton, and another punched me. I fell to the ground. I was screaming until one of them gagged my mouth with the blindfold. One kneed me in the chest. Then, a tall man lifted me up and threw me to the ground several times. Then another Taliban soldier hit me on my face with a baton, causing my nose to bleed. When they saw the blood, they stopped hitting me, covered my eyes again, and threw me back into the back seat of the van. They threatened to kill me and warned that I couldn’t escape from these beatings. When they again got me out of the van, I thought they would kill me. One of them opened the van door, grabbed me by the shoulder, and pushed me to move. I didn’t know where I was or where they were taking me.
“Get ready and walk up the stairs,” he ordered, grabbing my shoulder. We entered a room where he instructed me to sit down. Another person asked for all my details and recorded them. I had my university ID, an electricity bill, and 150 afghani, which he confiscated. Then he placed my thumbprint under what he’d written. After that, I heard an order: “Take this apostate to the kota qulfi and throw him in.” I didn’t know that meant solitary confinement.
They ordered me to walk down a flight of stairs, while holding onto my shoulders. I thought they might kill me after they ordered me to stop. Another Taliban member unbound my eyes and I saw that I was in front of a door, made of iron bars, that is the entry to a very long corridor. He took my shoes and belt then unlocked the large gate and moved me inside that corridor. He asked if I had prayed; my answer was no. He said I was to use the toilet on the left side as they won’t let me use it at night. Despite my body being covered in blood, I washed my hands and face. He muttered in Pashto, “Be quick, Hazaragi.” Then I was led straight to the end of the corridor where another small corridor was visible to the right, lined with six tiny rooms, each appearing to accommodate only one person. My room had two doors, and they locked both from outside. I was left alone. Thus began the most harrowing night of my life.
This night was the hardest of all nights in my life as I experienced kota qulfi for the first time. It was a tiny room, about four metres long and less than a metre wide. It contained only a worn-out carpet and two air ducts located high in the room. There was no window but rather a light that was so bright that you couldn’t look at it directly.
I sat down but had so much pain in my back that I couldn’t sleep. The room had a very foul odour, which made breathing very difficult. I had to endure it. Sometimes, I paced back and forth in the room. I went to the door and noticed that it had two holes: one in the middle, about 40 by 40 centimetres, and the other at the bottom, about 12 by 20 centimetres. I would discover that each hole served a specific purpose: they checked me through the upper hole every night to see if I was alive or dead, and they used the lower hole to give me food.
I could neither sleep nor feel sleepy; I stayed awake out of fear. All night, I looked through the lower hole to the corridor and waited. With every noise I heard, I thought that those who had tortured me earlier were coming back. I kept thinking about when and how they would kill me.
To be continued …
Abdul Rahman Haqmal* is the pseudonym of a former Kabul University student who is currently a refugee in a neighbouring country.
