My experience: How telling my story is helping me make sense of being kidnapped

Aminul Islam lives in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with his beloved cat Newton. Born in Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh, he joined the Bangladesh Army after finishing school in 1989, gaining opportunities for training and study. After leaving the military, Aminul worked in IT before moving into journalism and broadcast media as a technician. In 2013, he accepted a role in Afghanistan as head of broadcast and technical operations for a private media station. In February 2014 during a site visit to a satellite television transmitter, Aminul was abducted by Taliban militants and held hostage for 13 days. He recently contacted Hostage International to speak with someone who would understand and to help him tell his story. Here, Aminul shares his experience.

I still think about what happened often. Although I now feel stable and have recovered from the experience, I have not forgotten it, and I never will.

When I came back home to Bangladesh after the ordeal, I was silent and could not talk about it at all. Over the years, though, it has felt increasingly necessary to speak so my contacting Hostage International recently has been invaluable. They were there to take the time to listen and to be a light in a difficult journey.

I want to write my story down so that more people can understand what happened, and how it has shaped me. I am starting here.

It’s quite a long time ago now. I had been working in Afghanistan as a broadcast technician for a private broadcaster overseeing the installation of transmitters. Because the country is so mountainous, multiple masts are needed to relay signals from one tower to another.

In February 2014, I was joined by four colleagues from Australia, Canada, India and Pakistan for a site visit to inspect these transmission towers. We travelled from Jalalabad to Helmand and then on to Kandahar province.

At the end of our trip, the plan had been to return from Kandahar back to Kabul by plane.  I remember how after the final tower inspection we were standing out in a beautiful but very deserted open space with the mountains in the distance.

We were talking among ourselves when, suddenly, we were surrounded by around 15 men with guns. They tied and blindfolded us, forced us into a vehicle, and took us into the mountains.

We were told to identify ourselves and our country, and they seemed surprised when I said that I was Muslim. They asked me who the Prophet was, and I also uttered the Kalimas and Durood (also known as Salawat), but after that I was separated from my non-Muslim colleagues.

I could not understand what my captors were saying to one another, as they spoke in the local Pashto language, although they spoke to me in English.

I was taken to an abandoned mountain hut. There was a small window and all I could see was mountains. I felt very alone.

I was held there for 13 days. For the first day, I had no food, but then they gave me water and a few dates and biscuits. On the fourth day they told me that I had to ask my employers for ransom money, and if I didn’t, then we would all be killed.

I was put through on a phone, which couldn’t be tracked, to my boss. The company refused to pay ransom and said that they would arrange for the military to be sent. It was completely terrifying, and nothing seemed to happen.

After a few days, my captors told me to call my family and ask for money, even though I had explained that no one in my household could raise that kind of sum. They told me to ask my father. That really broke me, because he had died more than two decades earlier. I had tears in my eyes but, for a moment, my captors were sympathetic and even consoled me as I tried to explain that my family could not pay.

One day, the guards seemed unusually agitated or excited, speaking rapidly among themselves as they hurriedly left the hut I was in. I saw that they had abandoned their grenades and weapons inside with me. I could not understand why, or whether they had done so by mistake.

I locked the door, and the situation had changed.

From my army training, I knew how to use the weapons. But instead of turning them on the guards, I used that advantage to convince them that I was not their enemy, only someone who had come to their country to work. They threatened to blow up the hut, but I asked what they would gain by killing me. I reminded them that, according to the Islam they said they followed, a human life should not be taken. I pleaded with them to let me go.

By some miracle, they listened. I told them I would return their weapons if they released me and took me back to where they had abducted me. They agreed. They drove me back, handed back my phone and laptop, I returned the weapons, and then they drove away.

It was extraordinary. As they drove away, I felt I could breathe.

I called my company, and they sent three people to collect me. We flew back to Kabul, where a hospital check-up showed that I was exhausted but otherwise unharmed. One of my brothers called and asked why I had not been answering my phone. He said he had been wondering what was wrong. When he heard what had happened, he cried and told me not to worry about earning money there and to come home.

I returned to Bangladesh and found work with another broadcaster, then started freelancing. Life is slower now, and I am currently looking for work, but I have always loved reading in my spare time, especially since this experience.

Ernest Hemingway is one of my favourite authors, and I have been inspired to read almost all of his books. He is known for the idea of writing “one true sentence”, and for me, that has helped me to move forward and begin telling my own story. He wrote:

“From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality. That is why you write and for no other reason that you know of. But what about all the reasons that no one knows?”

Aminul’s cat Newton.

July 2026