Innocent dead

Bitter memories of tyranny at the hands of the Soviets haunt many Afghans. Hedayatullah Mojadedi has not been able to forget.
In 1979, Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan to prop up the then Communist government. In 1988, the Soviet Union pulled out of the country following years of bloody wars with mujahedin factions armed by the US.
Mojadedi says in the middle of 1981, while the weather in Logar province was very warm, Soviet troops moved from Pol Alam (the centre of the province) towards the Baraki Barak district. The soldiers faced resistance all the way but as they had air support the mujahidin could not resist continually.
In village after village, the Soviets conducted house-to-house searches, taking away unarmed villagers, many of whom would be shot dead.
Panda village, 10 km from Baraki Barak district, was the scene of one such bloody raid by Soviet troops. One or two members from each family were taken into custody on the claim that they were anti-government and the Soviet Union.
“Women and children were crying and pleading for the release of their relatives but it was no use,” recalls Mojadedi who was then just a child.
One of those arrested was his 60-year-old uncle, Ghulam Naqshbandi. The soldiers stormed into the house without permission, and after they had searched every room, they arrested Naqshbandi.
As he was being taken away along with the other men from the village his younger brother Mohammad Salem Mojadedi tried to save him. The Soviets took him along too.
Mojadedi says 35-40 male members of the some 70 families in Panda village were taken away. It was only after the soldiers had left that the terrified villagers dared to come out of their homes to search for the men, to find out if they were dead or alive.
Everyone joined in the search. Eventually their bodies were found in the corner of a wheat farm in the village. The men had been mercilessly gunned down at point blank range.
Mojadedi says his two uncles, Ghulam Mojadedi and Salem Mojadedi, were among the dead. What crime was the village punished for, he wonders. The dead were only innocent, unarmed civilians.