AT the age of 23, Shafiullah was the only breadwinner for his family of six, including himself, his wife, two minor children and ageing parents. His father, truck driver Niaz Muhammad, now 75, pulled the brakes permanently when his son opened a mobile phone shop in 2005.

The family was living a modest life in a mud hut comprising only three rooms in Adalkhad village of Landi Kotal, some four kilometres south of Landi Kotal bazaar to which Shafiullah would walk every day. He was the only son of his parents, and thus the family was overjoyed when Shafiullah and his wife had two sons, Sudhes Khan (aged three and a half) and Shoeb Khan (two years).

That was then.

“My family is devastated,” Niaz Muhammad says when I meet him at his house. “Not only have we lost my only son but also the only source of earning.” He says that every time he comes home, having visited either the local bazaar or offices of the political administration, the family asks desperately whether any clue has been found. Shafiullah was kidnapped by a group of armed men from near the Afghanistan border on Sept 4, along with 16 other local residents — mostly young, some of them school and college students.

“Shafiullah’s wife and his mother are unable to eat, though his little sons innocently plead for them to join them for meals,” recounts the old man. The family is now feeling the economic crunch, too, given that there is no source of earning.

“Shafiullah had saved up some money during his years of work at the shop, but its nearly all gone now,” Niaz Muhammad explains in a broken voice. He hugs his grandsons tightly; they are neatly dressed, with their hair nicely combed.

At the time of the kidnapping, Shafiullah was accompanied by six of his cousins, including brothers Ajmal (19) and Kamran (17). They too ran a mobile phone shop in Landi Kotal bazaar and another small-time business. In other words, their earning was modest. An 8th grade student, 14-year-old Abubakar, and his two uncles Bashirullah (22) and Ayazullah (17) were also amongst those abducted, as were their family members Waheedullah, Hazrat Noor and Nek Noor.

I meet Abdul Malik, father of Bashirullah and Ayazullah, at his hujra [guest house] in Gagra village. He recounts how, on that fateful day, he hadn’t even met his sons since he happened to leave the home early. Abubakar had come to Gagra from his home in Torkham to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha with his uncles when he too was targeted by the kidnappers, Abdul Malik says.

The young men had gone to the place from where they were abducted to clean up a spring that provided drinking water for the area, but that had been dirtied by animal dung and mud over time.

“The group wanted to make it a festive occasion so they took along some food to cook and soft drinks,” says Abdul Malik. “They planned to spend the night there.” The group was 18-strong but one of the kidnap victims, a local watchman, managed to escape a day after being taken since he was familiar with the area.

The grief-stricken father murmurs that the family has not lost hope that the missing men would be found, but everyone has been badly affected, especially Bashirullah’s young wife and the parents of 14-year-old Abubakar. Bashirullah’s wife had a miscarriage two months before her husband’s abduction, which has compounded her sorrow. As he talks, with his finger he traces circles on the mud floor of his hujra — a futile effort perhaps to shake off the grief in which he finds himself engulfed.

The local political administration, on its part, arranged for the travel of a six-member delegation comprising mostly the parents of the abducted men to Nangarhar province in Afghanistan to negotiate with the militant group involved in the kidnapping of the 17 Landi Kotal residents.

“The militant group’s demand for ransom is exorbitant and beyond our collective financial position,” says Safarash Khan, one of those that went to negotiate. He explains that they initially demanded Rs50 million as ransom; later, it was decreased to Rs10 million, but this is still beyond the villagers’ capacity.

The official response and effort to track down the missing and ensure their safe recovery has been pathetic. They tried to persuade the media not the “over-highlight” the issue as according to officialdom, excessive media coverage could harm the abducted men. The logistical support so far extended to the affected families was the sending of the six-man delegation across the border. Some food has been distributed amongst the aggrieved families. This, says one of the relatives of the missing, “was like rubbing salt on our injuries”.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2017