INDIAN SOLO traveller Arumina P, alias Backpacker Arumina, who posted distress messages on social media on Monday claiming she had been detained by the Taliban during her ongoing trip to Afghanistan, says the experience left her "was completely terrified".
Arumina, who had sought the help of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, told The Indian Express that however, she was safe. She posted a video on her YouTube channel Ottamalam in Kerala, saying people who had said she was detained by Taliban as they do not allow women traveling alone in Afghanistan.
In the YouTube video, she said people who had said she could not read her mind and said they were advising her against travelling alone as where at public places there.
"I spent several hours in torture. I was completely terrified. In the evening (on Monday), I hitched a ride and reached Bamyan. The very moment I got down from the vehicle, people surrounded me because a woman was not normally to be alone in Afghanistan at night," she said hearing that they were not ready to leave me alone to decide on where I should stay the night. They took my documents. I showed them my passport and visa. According to her, a woman cannot travel alone," she added.
Kerala travel vlogger Arumina has said that she had tried to contact the local authorities, that she had been travelling alone all these days, ever since she started the Afghan journey on August 27. "According to their law, I had violated the law and they were going to arrest me. Here, every Taliban member is like a police. They can do whatever they want. I asked them to deport me. They said I had violated the law and that the local authorities had decided that a woman cannot travel alone. I am a woman in a country where women are not allowed to travel alone."
Referring to her days in Afghanistan, the Kerala-based traveller said local authorities in Jalalabad did not issue the permit, but they said the woman cannot travel alone. "I repeatedly asked them to give me the permit, but they said they could not issue one without a male accompanying me, a guide," Arumina said.
Next stop, Uzbekistan: Arumina she would now be leaving for Uzbekistan, which is 500 km away, and there are seven checkpoints en route.
The traveller is exploring the planet's least-explored, wild, risky, and forgotten zones, sharing stories from the planet's least-explored, wild, risky, and forgotten. She wrote, "I'm deeply passionate about travelling, exploring new places, exciting experiences, freedoms, and a deeper connection with myself."
In earlier media interviews, the young traveller had stated that she had charted out a different trajectory in life after completing Class 12. Arumina, who said she loved travelling, started traveling the world for the last six years, exploring the world for the last six years, hitchhiking through 6 years, hitchhiking through lower on Instagram and 731K subscribers on YouTube.
Arumina's detention is not an anomaly; it is Taliban policy. Since 2021, Afghan women cannot travel more than 72 km without a mahram, and solo foreign women are forced into Taliban-approved guides. Her case exposes the gap between Instagram's "least-explored" adventure economy and ground reality where a woman alone at night in Bamyan is deemed illegal. The Indian Embassy in Kabul has limited leverage. Her pivot to Uzbekistan via seven checkpoints shows the next risk - Central Asian transit while tagged as a violator. It raises a larger question for solo travel vlogging: when does authentic exploration become avoidable danger?