9.
“I was kidnapped eight years ago, and it changed me forever. It’s an experience you wouldn’t want to wish on your worst enemy. I was running some errands with my mom, and we returned home around 9 p.m. In our part of the world, it’s normal to have a guard (ours was unarmed) because robberies are common, but kidnappings aren’t. The gate was opened by a stranger wearing a guard’s uniform. Later, we found out he was one of the kidnappers — he’d beaten up our guard and was wearing his uniform. There were three others, and we found them in the house pointing a gun at my dad’s head — his hands were tied, and I can never forget the look on his face and his body language (total helplessness).”
“The four home invaders/robbers (at that point, we didn’t know this was a kidnapping) stayed at our place for the next eight hours, ransacking it and grabbing anything that caught their attention (for example, they took gold cufflinks). They were heavily armed with an AK47 and a couple of pistols. They also had some kind of drug in a syringe, which they said they were going to use on me if I didn’t cooperate (that’s what they used on our guard after beating him up).
Close to daybreak, they let us know that they didn’t find enough in the house and were going to take me with them for ransom. They let me change, and I said one of the most painful goodbyes to my parents. Basically, we were prepared not to see each other in this world ever again.
The kidnappers got in one of our cars (the one without GPS tracking) and drove for about three to four hours. They made me promise to close my eyes; otherwise, they would drug me. We finally reached a ‘safe house’ in a rural area where they had more weapons and food, etc. Here they separated into two groups, with two of them taking me on a motorbike while the others took our car.
This was the start of a very dangerous part of the journey. I was sandwiched between the two guys, and the guy behind me had the AK47 between us…a very blunt/hard implied threat. Shortly after we took off from the safe house, they got agitated, saying that a group of rivals was on the way to kill them. We sped through roads, markets, and other areas, which added to the stress. At different points, we had to take refuge in fruit orchards and fields to ‘evade’ this group coming after them.
By evening, we reached another safe house in a rural area. I could see villagers and other people around, and it became evident that they knew what was happening but wouldn’t help. They were either afraid of these guys or in on the take.
The other two who took our car returned by evening, also shaken up. They had encountered the police, and our car had been banged up because it had fallen into a canal. I’m a Muslim and have strong faith, so I had been praying and reciting the Quran, which seemed to unsettle them a bit. I also talked to my parents once, and they let me know that they’d asked someone to pray at the Holy Mosque in Mecca and Medina. I let the kidnappers know about this, and all of this info (the people following us on the bike, the car accident, and the praying) definitely got to the kidnappers and I think they decided to get a ransom ASAP and let me go. They were a superstitious bunch and at some level were trying to justify what they were doing in a rational way.
The kidnappers also admitted they knew the local police and had been arrested before. They had paid off the police and escaped more than once, and the AK47 was a police issue. They were a professional bunch and had killed and kidnapped many people before in other cities.
I had to spend the night with them, but the next morning, they had arranged to meet my dad for the ransom. They drove with me to the pick-up point and let me go.
In the end, I am thankful to God that I got away. I think my faith and our concept of karma/fate helped me through this ordeal. But it has left a scar — life will never be the same again. It was hard to trust anyone for a while — I went into a shell. Even today, I look at people lurking in shadows suspiciously, lock all the doors in the house, etc., but that feeling of being safe in my own home is gone.”
—Anonymous
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