“No,” said Dr. Said firmly. “Just only as a rumor I have heard that. And there is no evidence, and I do not base my judgment on hearsay evidence!”
“Maybe you could tell me about an actual incident?” suggested the Young Man brightly.
“There is no evidence available to me.”
“I won’t press you.”
“Thank you.”
A few minutes later, when the interview had been concluded, Dr. Said picked up a dog-eared letter from his desk. It was in English. He had evidently forgotten about the young American snooping behind him. The letter was a plea to Afghan Refugee Commissioner Abdullah — who was said to be a partisan of Gulbuddin‡—for clemency and help in regard to this very same kidnapped doctor. Dr. Said wrote something on the letter in Pushtu, stamped it with his seal, and gestured to one of his men, who took it off somewhere.
“What do you do from day to day?” asked the Young Man.
“My actual job, according to the law, and the procedure, and the charter, comes to enforcement. This alliance consists of thirteen different committees. Each committee does its own job. For instance, Secretariat. What do they do? They do their own job. Political Committee does perform its own job. Research and Inspection Committee performs its own job. And I am the president of the Research and Inspection Committee. Because I studied law, I was a judge in Afghanistan in the Supreme Court. In various cases, I do investigation. There is interrogation of the people, clashes, offenses — minor offense, major offense — felony, misdemeanor …”
“So what do you do in the course of an interrogation?”
“Ah, interrogation is, as far as we are concerned, a very great major crime. To do the research, this is a police function — to find the criminal, to bring him in for interrogation, and when they are brought for interrogation, then as a prosecution I determine my own vote on these people, and I send the vote and interrogate these people, in a very human way. After the completion of the case according to the realm of international law, we send the case to the Commissary. Whatever they like, they may perform in conjunction with the case. — I personally from the very beginning up to the last find this interesting, but if you have specific questions as far as you are concerned, please come up to my office and ask this question and I will show you the type of work: how we interrogate the people, how the accusation is delivered to the people and how their denial is accepted.”
“When can I come?”
“Anytime. Do come, and do ask for Dr. Judge Najib Said, the President of Investigation and Research.”
At the time I thought Dr. Said to be a very cruel man. Nowadays, I am happy or sad to say, if I were to meet Dr. Said I would scarcely give the possible cruelty of his occupation a thought. If there are Soviet informants among the Mujahideen, then they must be identified and killed. (But what if the Communists are not Communists at all? — Well, everyone makes mistakes.)
“Here it is difficult as it were to keep our heads up,” says Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations, I.106), “—to see that we must stick to the objects of our every-day thinking and not go astray and imagine that we have to describe extreme subtleties, which in turn we are quite unable to describe with the means at our disposal. We feel as if we had to repair a torn spider’s web with our fingers.”
“So Gulbuddin kidnaps people?” the Young Man asked ingenuously.
“Yes, he kidnaps so many peoples here in Peshawar!” the man cried. — They were in Secretary-General Pizzarda’s office. Judge Dr. Said was there, too, but he was talking to someone else, so he did not take note of the interview. Both the Young Man and his informant kept turning to watch Dr. Said to make sure that he was still occupied. None of the other Mujahideen said anything. — “He kidnap last year one person in — Tribal Agency,” said the man quickly, “and last month he kidnap another person, then he killed him. Last month, he kidnap my brother, Dr. Abdul Sumad Durani; he was my brother! Now he—refuse him; he say, ‘I didn’t kidnap him,’ but we have some document: he kidnap, he catch … Police catch his vehicle in driveway.”
“Gulbuddin thought he was Communist?”
“No! He was not Communist; he was Muslim; he was Mujahid!” The man was weeping quietly. None of the other Mujahideen in the office said anything.
The Young Man tried again. “Why was he kidnapped?”
“He don’t like so many social person; he don’t like educated person here in Pakistan. You know? He don’t like.”
“My name is Habib Shah Alaquadar,” said the old man, standing straight and tall.§ “I am married. I am from Sayed Karam, in Paktiya Province. When Taraki came to power we started our jihad. At this time, my son, Dr. Abdul Sumad Durani, worked among the freedom fighters as a medical doctor. He took care of wounded people … After we came to Peshawar, he founded the doctors’ union here. This union represented other medical unions from Italy, Germany, America and France. He was the representative and director of this medical union. He received medicine and other humanitarian help from America and other countries and took them inside Afghanistan for distribution among the people. But now Gulbuddin has kidnapped him! On May 25, at 12 p.m., he was taken away by Gulbuddin party members. We don’t know where he is now. He must be in one of Gulbuddin’s prisons. We have reported this incident to different authorities. We have told the Commissioner, and the police. But Abdullah, the Commissioner, is a supporter of Gulbuddin.”
As he talked, the old man unbuttoned his shirt and reached inside to show the Young Man his cartridge belt. His voice was firm and calm. “Dr. Sumad was not an ordinary man,” he said. “He was a leader. We Afghans have a custom of taking revenge. Gulbuddin has killed a leader of ours. We must kill one of their leaders. The leader that we must kill could be Gulbuddin himself, or Sayaf or another leader. About eighty percent of the freedom fighters in Pakistan belong to our party, and we are stronger than Gulbuddin.”
The Jamiat-i-Islami had two separate offices. The Young Man was always directed to the Political Office, which was right around the corner from the street by whose low white-brick wall a vendor of little red plums stood watching the Young Man, smiling without really smiling, a red cloth around his head; and his sons big and small stood holding plums and staring at the Young Man, and the vendor looked youngish except that his stubble on chin and chest was gray; and the Young Man bought a handful of plums, which were delicious, and then he turned that corner and strode into the central courtyard, where the young boy with the AK-47 would stop him. Then the Young Man had to wait until someone could identify him. Meanwhile the guard smiled, puffed out his chest, and gestured that he wanted a photograph taken of him for the Afghanistan Picture Show. When the Young Man obliged, he beamed in delight. This happened every time.