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'My name is not Aryana. It's Freshta': How Afghan star made plan B to flee Kabul
Afghan pop star Aryana Sayeed said she instructed her fiancé and manager to shoot her if the Taliban captured her alive.
Afghan pop star Aryana Sayeed who fled Kabul after the Taliban takeover has recounted the harrowing experience as her first attempt failed. In an interview to AFP, the pop star who fled to Istanbul said that she instructed her manager and fiance to shoot her in case the Taliban captured her alive. "I said to him, you know Hasib... if I am about to be taken away alive, just shoot me. Just shoot me in the head," she told AFP from Istanbul.
Her first attempt to flee Kabul was on August 15, the day the Taliban captured Kabul. But the flight she was planning to board did not take off. The following day she made her second attempt and since then the pop star made trips to Doha, Kuwait and the US, the report said. Now she and her fiance are back in Istanbul.
As they were waiting amid the swelling crowd in the airport, a kid came and sat on her lap and then the star came up with her plan B. "We made up a story as well. I remember we told this little kid if we get stopped, you have to tell them I am your mum and my name is not Aryana. It's Freshta," she said recounting how she made back-up plans.
US soldiers initially refused to let them through as they were not American citizens, but a translator recognised Hasib and told the soldiers that he was the fiance of a big star whose life was in jeopardy.
"If the Taliban are around, there is definitely no space for me because the Taliban are thirsty for my blood," she said.
The 26-year-old star have been vocal against Pakistan's meddling into Afghanistan affairs and slammed the recently announced Taliban cabinet for not being inclusive at all. "The women of Afghanistan are not the same women they were 20 years ago. They are definitely not going to accept this," she said.
(With agency inputs)
