Memoir of a Pakistani Torture Cell

The Sunday Times - Britain


August 07, 2005

Focus: Ordeal of a British Muslim

--- Tahir Shah vanished for two weeks into a torture cell while on a film-making trip to Pakistan ---

I scanned the room. It was arranged for torture. There was a rack for breaking feet, a bar for hanging a man upside down, rows of manacles, straps and batons, and pliers for extracting teeth.
There were syringes with used needles, smelling salts, a medical drip and dried blood on the floor and walls.

Exactly where this dreadful place is I still do not know; I arrived and left in a blindfold. But it is near Peshawar on Pakistan’s northwest frontier, and it is run by Islamabad’s military intelligence.

I was held there because I am a British Muslim. I was arrested while travelling in Pakistan on July 18, three days before the attempted second wave of bombings in London, and I was not released until last week, 16 days later.

My offence: suspected terrorism. I was born in Britain but my family’s background is in India and Afghanistan.

I was travelling to Afghanistan to help to research a documentary for Five about a lost treasure of Mogul India with Leon and David Flamholc, a father-and-son film-making team.

In Peshawar our plan was to head down the Khyber Pass to Kabul. But I suggested a detour to find the house of a distant relative. As we searched, David videoed me, hoping to capture my reunion with old relatives. Suddenly a military police officer, armed with a sub-machinegun, strode up. He took our passports and the camera and led us to a military post.

We said we had not filmed anything sensitive and the atmosphere was calm. They admitted there were no signs in English prohibiting filming but said there was a sign in Urdu, which none of us could read. They rummaged through our luggage, asked questions and said they were waiting for a senior officer to turn up.

After about four hours, he swept in. His tone was abrupt. He said we were being detained and had no right to call our embassies. We were blindfolded, our hands chained behind our backs and led to a truck at gunpoint.

After a short drive we arrived at a medical installation. We were stripped and examined, still chained and blindfolded. Just to lose one’s vision is the most terrifying thing. The doctor told his assistant to prepare sedatives. It was a terrible moment. I crouched, waiting for the prick of a needle which, thankfully, never came.

Fearing I was about to pass out, I fought hard to take deep breaths. I was sweating so heavily that my blindfold was drenched. Through a tiny gap I could make out fragments of the room: resuscitation equipment, manacles and a pool of fresh blood.

We were bundled back into the pick-up and driven at high speed to an interrogation unit. We spent the next 36 hours in a military dungeon — a large, cavernous cell with bare walls and a concrete floor. Armed soldiers stood at the door.

We were interrogated by the plain-clothes officer who had ordered our arrest. At first he emphasised that we had committed grave crimes and would have to pay the price.

After watching the video footage, however, he changed tack, agreeing that there was nothing wrong.

“Then why are you charging us?” I asked.

“You are not charged,” he replied.

“Then can we go?”

“No, I must write a report.”

“How long will that take?”

“Days, perhaps weeks.”

It became clear that I was being held on suspected terrorism charges. As a British citizen of Asian Muslim origin, I was suspected of being part of the world of suicide bombers, religious schools and Islamic fanaticism.

“I eat bacon,” I said, “I drink wine and I don’t even know the Muslim prayers.”

At 10 on the second night we heard the sound of keys. My cell was opened by a pair of towering plain-clothes officers. I noticed that the chains and blindfolds they carried were different from those of the military police. It seemed that we were being passed to another agency.

We were led to a jeep and driven through the streets of Peshawar, then out of the city and down a bumpy dirt track. My overwhelming fear was that we were about to be shot in the back of the head and dumped away from town.

It flashed across my mind that in some parts of the world life is cheap: a bullet in the neck is an easy way to tie up loose ends.

Eventually the jeep braked. I heard an iron gate slide open and we jerked in over what felt like a cattle grid. We were dragged out in chains and held squatting on the ground. Behind my blindfold I could smell jasmine and hear a man moaning in the distance.

We were led into a brightly lit cell block and isolated in individual cells. Mine was about two yards by three, with a concrete floor and a concrete bed. There was a rough lice-ridden blanket, a strip light that was never turned off, a squat lavatory and a hosepipe.

The walls were bare white, covered in graffiti, written mostly in faeces and blood — much of it in English.

I could not sleep, nor see what was happening beyond my cell. But there were the sounds of men weeping and what had to be the screams of others being tortured. The fear of being taken out and shot was constant. Nobody outside would know; nobody had a clue that we had been taken away.

The next day I concluded that we were being held by military intelligence. The guards, who were all dressed in plain clothes, refused to give their names. One, a young man who brought me water, said the unit was known as “the Farm”. He told me that keeping calm was the best way of staying alive.

Leon and David were in cells nearby, but speaking to each other was forbidden. When I needed the hosepipe turned on I would shout so they could hear me. They did the same.

Late on the second night a guard came to my cell with chains and blindfold. I called out to David and Leon that I was being moved. They told me later that they thought I was being taken to be shot.

I staggered down a long corridor and was pushed into a chair. A voice said that if I told the truth I would not be harmed.

I was interviewed for three hours. The questions ranged from my family to my knowledge of Islam, explosives, my work as a writer and documentary maker and how much money I earned.

My fears were increased when the blindfold was untied and I saw an array of instruments of torture. The implication was clear. Horrified, I was returned to my cell.

During the days I felt myself slipping close to madness. The trick was to stay calm and keep the mind occupied. I spent hours working out how to break free. But trying to escape would have been suicide.

I forced myself to drink huge quantities of liquid to compensate for all the sweating, and spent the days in fitful sleep, worrying about my wife and two children on holiday in Bombay, wondering when and how the outside world would begin to miss us.

I was interrogated time and again, usually between midnight and about 3am. Sometimes I was blindfolded and at other times not.

When I was able to see, I got a peek into other rooms. I saw two crouching men with long black beards. A guard said they were Afghans who had been there for months. One was in a cell painted with black and white spirals to drive him mad.

The interrogators, who changed constantly, refused to let me contact my wife or the British embassy.

One night I boasted that news of our incarceration could not be hushed up. The interrogator told me that two weeks earlier an American helicopter had strayed across the border from Afghanistan and strafed a truck, killing 27 women and children. He said news of the atrocity had never got out — anything could be covered up in Pakistan.

After about a week, however, I persuaded the young guard to leave a message for my sister-in-law in London that I and my friends were alive.

I did not know that my family had assumed we had been kidnapped — or that my sister Saira Shah, known for her documentary about Afghanistan, Beneath the Veil, had jumped on a flight to Pakistan to try to find us.

The days dragged on. I found that the best way to stay upbeat was to see the absurdity of it all. And there were moments of grotesque humour. One night I was stamping around the cell killing cockroaches. In the background I could hear the wild wailing of a man in the torture room. The guard came to my cell and ordered me to stop making so much noise. He said I was keeping the others awake.

There were also elements of touching humility. Late one evening a guard came to my cell. I was wearing just boxer shorts because of the heat. I started putting on my shirt, assuming another interrogation session was about to begin. He waved for me to relax and stuck his fist through the bars. In his palm were three juicy pineapple cubes for me.

Then at 4am last Wednesday, after 16 nights’ detention, our bags were brought to the cells. We were told to check that nothing had been taken and ordered to sign a document confirming that we had not been maltreated. An officer from the Pakistani Civilian Intelligence Agency stepped from the shadows.

An hour later we were sitting in the VIP lounge of Peshawar airport as the civilian officer apologised for the military’s “heavy-handed” treatment. It was explained politely that we were being flown to London via Abu Dhabi and that we had no choice.

The officer said repeatedly that there were no charges against us and that we would be welcome to return. I hope so. Despite the ordeal I remain a great admirer of Pakistan and want to walk in its mountains as a free man.

Slipping back into London life was surreal. I came back to a capital where there seemed to be armed police on every street corner, a city bracing itself for more terror.

I may have returned to Britain but my mind is still in Pakistan. I keep thinking about the cell I left behind, wondering who is huddled in there now.

(Written for The Sunday Times, London)

(C) Tahir Shah 2005