This took place six weeks after conference organisers the UAE foreign ministry, DP World and Abu Dhabi Ports Company took up his case to premiere a video at last year’s event, featuring his daughters’ efforts to raise the ransom money.
Looking wan and still troubled from his experience, he recounted painful memories to a rapt audience. “We were attacked in the morning on 26 November 2010,” said Khan of the hijack off the Maldives. “The deal was supposed to be with the [Malaysian] owner,” he said. “The pirates asked for a huge ransom, six or eight times the ship’s value [or around $30m]. The owner offered $1m —and then the killing started.”
The rest of Khan’s crew consisted of seven Bangladeshis, six Sri Lankans, two Indians and one Iranian. As Initial and inflated demands went unanswered, an Indian hostage, one of the youngest in the crew, was shot dead to bring pressure to bear for the ransom.
The figure was gradually whittled down to just under $3m, as the pirates sensed hard cash in the offing. Khan’s family raised $1.1m to free him, and $1.75m for the Pakistani crew, largely through a Pakistani entrepreneur’s help, after the vessel’s owner went bankrupt and refused to assist.
“The crew was totally demoralised from the shock of the hijacking. The pirates robbed [them], and then started ransacking the containers,” said Khan. He spoke of ravenously hungry attackers looting the vessel’s food provisions, punishing him by throwing him from deck into the sea, and, once ashore, leaving him and his crew to languish in the midday sun without shade.
“It was like a nightmare for us,” said Khan’s wife, Shahnaz. “For four months, there was no news. Then we received all kinds of threats.” Based in Karachi, she turned to her daughters, Nareman and Mishal, who set up a website to attract attention to her husband’s plight. “I never really accepted the possibility he might not come back,” said Nareman, who led the campaign from Dubai.
“We did the rounds, door-to-door, we went to the mosques, we went wherever we could go to raise money,” said Mrs. Jawaid, admitting that the main Pakistani benefactor was instrumental in securing her husband’s freedom.
“I do feel sorry I left [the rest of the crew left behind],” said Khan. “I had to safeguard my own countrymen. The governments of those countries somehow need to bring [the remaining hostages] [home]. I thank the [conference organisers]. I hope and pray they will control [piracy in future].”
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