Kabul Diary - Law And Order

9.00 pm. It’s late, by Kabul standard. I want to take a stroll as the weather is nice and chilly. During the day you can see snow on the far mountains. I am told there is no law and order problem in Kabul. No one will mug you. No drunken drivers will run over you. But kidnappings happen in the night! (Suicide bomb attacks are usually in the morning. I guess there is something businesslike about mornings.) Especially on the outskirts. Well, I would imagine kidnapping is a law and order problem. At least in Delhi and Patna. There must be some unfathomable nuances that make it otherwise here.

I get back to the hotel, through a door-like space between sandbags. There are two heavily armed guards wearing combat fatigues and body armour. Another guard receives me inside and asks for my hotel key-card. Without that card I am not allowed even to get into the street. When he sees the card, he speaks on his walkie-talkie to another Kalashnikov-wielding guard behind a 4-5 inch thick steel door, who opens a slit in it, watchfully. Then he pulls it open, just enough for me to pass. All the guards are Tajik. They don’t like Pashtuns.

By the way, on the outskirts of Kabul, cell phones don’t work from evening till morning, by order. Of who, I don’t know. Taliban? May be. There are theories for the communication blackout. Some say `operations’ take place during that time. I really don’t know.