Od's Been Taken (Part II)

I went to Od's house to find his distraught mother her eyes still tearing. I didn't say anything, Nahida did all the talking with her, I just listened.

Yesterday the police were going going through his neighbourhood looking at the cars in the neighbourhood. They checked my friends car because it has 'Al Anbar' province plates. He was at home alone at the time, and they give it the all clear. Then his family, mother and uncles, arrived.

After the police finished going through all the street. They came back to his house, emptied the university handouts and stuff from his car and took him and the car. His mother described how she and him looked into each other's eyes during the moments that he was being taken away.

She didn't get the name of the officials. The police said that they were part of the explosives division and that she didn't have to worry, that they were only going to take him in for interrogation.

After a couple of hours later, Od called his mother and told her he was in a nearby neighbourhood. And then other acquaintances later called her too telling her that they'll get Od back. But she's being told by different people that he's being held in different places.

Nahida told his mum to go to the offices of a certain political party and to seek help there. And told her that if Od doesn't come back by tomorrow that she'll try calling up our own connection to help get him out.

On the way back home I got stopped by that same checkpoint that had been stopping nearly everyday for the past week. It's very close to his house, so I was hoping that they'd be the same guys that were there yesterday so I could ask them about those that took Od. But the guys manning the checkpoint had changed.

At this point it's anybody's guess if he's being detained just for the sake of an interrogation in which case he'll be released promptly or whether he's being taken under the guise of an interrogation to have him tortured and then killed. But I'm hoping and expecting him to come back soon enough.

I asked Od's mum for her phone number but since she didn't know hers and didn't have any credit on her phone she couldn't give it to me. So I gave her mine, so that she can call me after she tops-up her mobile up. But I should have taken Od's uncle's phone number at least so I could at least pass it on to Nawf and Sida.