A SCOTTISH woman told yesterday how she was held hostage for 10 years and used as slave labour in Pakistani kidnap camps.
An international police investigation has been launched into the abduction of Naheeda Bi, 28, who was returned to her family in Glasgow last week.
She was beaten and drugged after being snatched at Islamabad Airport in April 2000 as she made her way home after visiting relatives in Pakistan.
For the next 10 years, she lived a hellish existence, being moved from camp to camp and forced to work as a slave beside other hostages in a secret munitions factory in Pakistan's tribal regions.
Her hair was shaved, she was terrorised and she became so ill she feared she would die.
It is believed her kidnap was the longest ever endured by a Briton - almost double that of journalist John McCarthy, held for five-and-a-half years in Beirut.
But three weeks ago, she was freed and dumped by her captors in rural Pakistan with her uncle Masood, who had been kidnapped separately but was kept alongside her throughout her ordeal.
Speaking exclusively to the Record from a secret location, Naheeda said she found it hard to believe she was home.
She said: "Every day I used to think could be my last and some days I wished that it was.
"I still cannot believe my hell is over. When I wake up, I look around the room twice. Just to make sure that I am really here."
Naheeda's family are demanding an inquiry, claiming her disappearance was not taken seriously in 2000 when she was reported missing to Strathclyde Police and the Foreign Office.
She said: "I am a British citizen yet they refused to look for me because I was an adult. They should have at least tried to contact me to make sure I was OK but they didn't care. They left me to rot."
A spokesman for Strathclyde Police said: "We are absolutely delighted Naheeda has been reunited with her family.
"Obviously, she has been through a terrible ordeal over the past 10 years and we will continue to support Naheeda and her family in every way we can.
"We will continue to liaise with the authorities both in Pakistan and at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to aid them with their ongoing investigation."
During Naheeda's captivity, her family continued to campaign for her freedom.
They enlisted the help of local MP Maria Fyfe, who pressed then Foreign Office Minister Keith Vaz to take action.
Naheeda, the daughter of a prosperous businessman, had been away with her mother Rabia to visit her grandmother Daulat in the Punjab region of Pakistan.
But her grandmother was ill and after three months, Rabia told Naheeda to go home without her.
The family dropped her off at the airport to catch a plane to Manchester, where she was to be picked up by her father Akram and brother Razman.
But while she was queuing, she was pulled aside by two men in uniform who said she was in the wrong place and her plane had been delayed.
She sat alone for several hours before they came back to tell her she had missed her flight.
She said: "I was travelling alone for the first time. I was upset and called dad."
Naheeda's father told her to call her family in Pakistan, who said they would send her Uncle Masood, her mother's brother, to get her.
While she waited, the men gave her a glass of water and the next thing she remembered was waking up alone in a dark, windowless room.
Weeping and shaking as she spoke, Naheeda said: "After I took the water, I don't know what happened.
"All I remember is I woke up in a place. It was closed all round. I was feeling ill and weak. I was screaming for my parents. I didn't know where I was.
"I was on the floor. There was no furniture, no window, just a ventilator on the wall. It was dark, messy and dirty.
"I was left for what seemed a long time and eventually they came - a couple of Pakistani guys who spoke a language I didn't understand."
Naheeda later discovered the language was Pushto, spoken primarily in Afghanistan and western Pakistan.
She said: "They started screaming and yelling and kicking me. They were angry and they sedated me by injecting my feet. I didn't understand them.
"They beat me and slapped me. A day and night passed, then more days. I was so scared. I thought I was going to be killed."
After a few days, the kidnappers brought in a mobile phone and made Naheeda speak to a man on it.
She said: "He was speaking Punjabi. He said my parents were in Pakistan too and that I didn't have anything to worry about as long as I listened to what he said."
Over the next few days, the gang leader spoke to her six times.
He told her that for £500,000 her father could buy her life and she was confident her dad would be able to get the money and she would get home.
But at least two months passed of being locked in the room, subjected to regular beatings and being fed only water and some rice. She was not allowed to leave the room and had to use a toilet in the corner.
She said: "I was so scared. I couldn't sleep. I had been pampered and protected at home. I kept wondering why my parents hadn't come to get me.
"I felt like dying. I thought that if there was a way I could kill myself I would do it."
Without warning, the kidnappers blindfolded her, put her in the back of a vehicle and drove her for several hours to a new location. This time it was two buildings in desert scrubland.
She was placed in a large room with more than 20 other people, including her uncle, who had been snatched at the airport. Naheeda had no idea until then that he had been picked up.
She said: "The room was full of people who had been kidnapped, even kids. They treated us badly. People would be dragged by the hair from one place to another, they would be verbally abused and beaten."
The men and women were separated and Naheeda and the other women were put to work making munitions.
She said: "There were parts of guns and every day we would work, no matter how ill we got. We would polish gun handles, filing them, cleaning them. There were different parts of weapons."
There was no more contact from the man who had called for ransom.
This was to be the second of four places she would be moved to over the 10 years, always with her uncle but with varying conditions.
They had no way of knowing how long they were there. Sometimes the same people would be moved with them and sometimes new hostages would arrive.
Naheeda said: "We would talk and say how long we had been there.
"People would come and go. Sometimes people would be taken away and we would never see them again. Some people were killed."
The end of Naheeda's nightmare came almost as suddenly as it had begun. Three weeks ago, she was handed a phone - and was shocked to hear her mother on the other end.
Crying as she recalls hearing her mother's voice for the first time in 10 years, she said: "My mother came on the phone and asked, 'Hello, who is speaking?'
"I would recognise my mother's voice anywhere. I didn't know what to say. I just started crying. When I got myself together, I said, 'Mum, come and help me.'
"I didn't have any idea I would talk to one of my parents. I thought then that somehow they might let me go home. I was in shock."
A few days passed and Naheeda was given another chance to talk to her mother, who passed the phone to her brother Razman, so he could speak English to her and confirm her identity.
Naheeda said: "I was prepared this time. I talked to Razman and asked why he wouldn't just come and get me. I kept saying, 'Take me away from here.'"
Naheeda now believes the camp was in the infamous Swat Valley in the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan, where Pakistani authorities have been targeting insurgents.
Before their release, there had been rumours in the camp that the Pakistan army were closing in on the area.
A few days after they spoke to Rabia, Naheeda and Masood were blindfolded and put in a truck with some others.
After a full day of driving, they were dumped in a remote area. Naheeda heard other people being dropped off, which may indicate the captors were getting rid of hostages before the army moved in.
They later discovered they were dropped in Dera Ghazi Khan in the Punjab, a dangerous tribal area rife with outlaws and criminal gangs.
Naheeda said: "They just opened the truck and threw us out and drove off."
Hours later, Naheed and Masood reached a settlement where two men agreed to take them to a nearby village in a tractor. There, they borrowed money for a bus which took a day and night to get them to Chakwal, a city 56 miles south-east of Islamabad.
In Chakwal, they called Rabia's mobile number. She and Akram had already travelled to Pakistan and were waiting for news from the kidnappers.
Rabia told them she was in a hotel in a small town called Dina. Naheeda said: "We got to the hotel and my mother was waiting. I thought I was dreaming. I kept hugging and hugging her.
"Then my father came out and I thought, that was it, the end of the hell, now I am safe.
"My mother kept looking at me and saying that I was different. She was crying as well."
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