Kerala vlogger says she fled arrest threat in Afghanistan over solo travel
A Kerala vlogger who earlier said she was arrested by Mujahideen in Afghanistan now says she escaped an arrest threat, citing rules against women travelling alone.
A Kerala-based vlogger who earlier claimed she had been arrested by Mujahideen in Afghanistan has now said she escaped a threatened arrest in the country, linking the episode to restrictions on women travelling unaccompanied.
In a fresh post on social media, the woman, who runs the Facebook page Backpacker Arunima, said the law in Afghanistan does not permit a woman to travel alone. She said she had also been refused a permit in Jalalabad on an earlier occasion for the same reason — that she was travelling by herself.
The account marks a shift from her previous claim that she had been taken into custody by Mujahideen. In the latest post, she describes instead having got away from a threat of arrest.
No further details of the sequence of events, the location of the reported threat or the identity of those involved were provided in the post. The claims could not be independently verified.
Afghanistan has imposed sweeping restrictions on women's movement and travel since the Taliban returned to power, including requirements that women be accompanied by a male relative on longer journeys. The rules have sharply limited independent travel for Afghan women and drawn criticism from international bodies.
The vlogger's posts have drawn attention in Kerala, where her account of travelling alone through Afghanistan has been widely shared online.