Everything looked normal when I left home for the language centre where I taught English. I walked through the alley before entering the main street. Out of habit, I checked both directions to make sure there was no police vehicle or motorcycle passing by before proceeding. Other than a few pedestrians walking back and forth, I did not notice anything suspicious.
I was walking quickly along the main road when I heard the sound of a motorcycle approaching very close.
Before I could turn my head, the motorcycle stopped in front of me. The moment I saw the gun hanging from the rider’s neck, everything went dark. I was in shock; my hands and feet began trembling. The fear I used to feel in Afghanistan’s narrow streets and alleys returned and was standing right before me.
They were two police officers, with another person sitting between them on the motorcycle. My mind was desperately trying to understand what was happening when suddenly a hand grabbed my arm tightly from behind. In a loud voice, an officer ordered, “Get on.”
I turned around and saw that another motorcycle had arrived. The police officer’s face was covered with a black scarf, leaving only his eyes visible. I wanted to say something, but he brought his face close to mine and stared at me with eyes that seemed to radiate violence. With a harsher voice and an intimidating presence, he repeated, “Get on.”
He placed me between the two officers on the motorcycle, and we began moving.
For someone like me, who has experienced being arrested and imprisoned by the Taliban, this incident brought back the same painful memories and feelings. Although the Taliban had sent more heavily armed men in Ranger vehicles to organize my arrest, there was no difference in the way they treated me. Both the Taliban and Pakistani forces wore black uniforms decorated with white stripes in some parts. Their faces were covered with black scarves, and neither hesitated to use violence, insults, or humiliation.
Another similarity between them was their refusal to use many words. It felt as if it was their piercing eyes that spoke to people — eyes filled with anger, fear, and contempt.
We passed through narrow and deserted alleys and reached the main road. By now, I realized that each of the two motorcycles carried a migrant seated between two police officers. Near the police station, I pleaded with the officer sitting behind me to let me go. I tried to explain that I faced the threat of death in Afghanistan.
At first, the officer did not respond. After we reached a quieter road and the motorcycle slowed slightly, he said, “This country belongs to the Punjabis. They do not let people like us live here.”
My hands and feet were still trembling, and I could barely speak properly when we arrived at the police station.
They searched us and took our phones. Then they made us sit on a long bench that had been placed in the corner of the hall. Sitting beside me, I noticed that the other person’s hands and feet were also trembling, and the colour had drained from his face.
I asked, “Where did they arrest you from?” He struggled to get the words out, finally revealing that they had caught him inside an alley.
Two police officers, neither of whom understood Persian, were sitting a short distance away behind a desk. One of the officers asked us if we could speak Urdu. With broken and hesitant words, I explained that I was a teacher and that my passport was at home. The other person said that he had an identification card and had shown it to the police, but they had refused to accept his documents and brought him here anyway.
After some time, another person joined the two police officers. He was not wearing a uniform. This new person, who spoke Persian, sat beside us and asked us to tell him the truth because he wanted to help us. Smiling and acting friendly, he asked whether we really had documents or whether we had lied.
I told him the truth: my visa had expired. The other person repeated what he had already told the police. After a brief pause, he suggested that he could arrange our release if we paid him 100,000 Pakistani rupees.
After much insistence, they returned our phones. My phone did not have a SIM card, so I used the other person’s phone. I called my friend and briefly explained what had happened. They took our phones again and threw us into a small, empty room.
As we were being taken toward the room, I noticed that one of the same police officers who had arrested us had brought in two more people. That was when I realized that the police were treating migrants almost like passengers being picked up by illegal transporters. Within minutes, there were four of us inside the room.
One of the two newly arrested people appeared to be around 15 years old. At first, he did not speak. After a while, he wet his lips with his tongue and said that he had been arrested in front of a bakery.
The fourth person, with sorrow visible all over his face, complained, “This is the fourth time they have arrested me.”
We waited for less than an hour. A commotion could be heard in the hall. A few minutes later, the sound of footsteps in boots approached the door, and the lock to our cell was opened.
The mother and aunt of the youngest person in our cell had arrived. Looking extremely distressed and frantic, they were brought to the doorway of the room and shown their son. When the mother saw her son, she smiled and then followed the police officer.
A financial transaction was taking place. How much money was this mother willing to pay in exchange for her son’s freedom? I had no way of knowing. Only a mother in that situation could guess the price she was willing to pay. But what was clear to me was that the police wanted to exploit a mother’s love and desperation to increase the price of the deal in their favour.
Amid this chaos, my former colleague also arrived. After seeing me from outside the door, he too approached the senior police officer. Ten minutes later, the young boy and I had been released and were on our way home.
But every motorcycle that passed brought back the fear of the previous two hours. At any moment, that terrible experience could happen again.
This situation, which has become part of our daily lives in Pakistan, has unfortunately intensified significantly following the latest deadline announced by the Pakistani government. On June 1, the government issued a statement announcing that the deportation of migrants across the country would be intensified after July 10.
Following this announcement, Pakistani police in Quetta increased the arrests and deportations of migrants. The pace accelerated dramatically as the deadline of July 10 approached.
On the very street where we live, police vehicles or motorcycles now patrol at least 10times a day, as officers ask people to show their identification cards. The situation has become so oppressive that the sound of any vehicle is now interpreted as a possible police presence for residents in our neighbourhood.
For me, as someone who has experienced several arrests, each sound of a car or motorcycle is accompanied by such intense fear and anxiety that my body reacts involuntarily as my head begins to spin and I sometimes feel physically unwell.
