After the seizure of Khojaly over the night from 25 to 26 February 1992 I had to leave the town with my family. But during the skirmish we lost each other. Later I began to look for them but could find only my sister Durdana wounded in her leg in the place called Garagaya in the Aghdam district.
On 26 February 1992, at about 8.00-9.00 a.m., the Armenians opened fire, and we tried to escape and hide in the trench towards Garagaya along with 5-6 men, but were surrounded and captured. Abusing and beating us with the barrels of machine guns, pieces of wood and iron they forced us to walk by foot to the highway in Askeran. The Armenians were throwing stones, pieces of wood and shooting over our heads. They were beating and torturing me and my sister Durdana for about thirty minutes, and after that they brought us to the isolator of the Askeran Police Department and threw to the cell full of people. Here they tortured us more cruelly. Tortures were led by Karo, an Armenian who was the head of the Fire Prevention Division at that Department. Karo with the other Armenians in military uniform were beating people in the cells with batons, barrels of machine guns, pieces of wood and iron, dragging women by hair to the corridors, raping and then throwing to separate cells.
On 26 February 1992, at about 12.00-13.00 a.m., 7-8 drunk Armenians in military uniform entered the cell and began to beat Zulfi, Elkhan, Nasib, Khagani and 30-40 inhabitants of Khojaly and the Garadagli village, whose names I can’t remember now. One Armenian hit my mouth with the barrel of AKM machine gun and torn my upper lip. I have a scar left as a result of that injury. The inhabitant of Khojaly, tractor driver Huseyn, went mad after being beaten by the Armenians, he was laughing all the time and that’s why they killed him there. When the Armenians found out that the other inhabitant of Khojaly Elkhan was “Alazan” rifleman, they cut his belly with a knife and took him somewhere. Later we heard that Elkhan had died from the received injuries. They took young boy Khagani somewhere, and we haven’t heard anything about him since then. They took machine-gunner Natig somewhere too.
I remember that on 27 February 1992 I was brought to the cell of that Department. Here the Armenians, following Karo’s instructions, undressed people and began to beat them with pieces of iron until they lost consciousness. That night they were beating me too, but before they started I saw that they had brought into the cell a young boy Mobil who had worked at the bread shop in Khojaly. Karo wounded Mobil’s leg from the fire-arm and he fell down. Then they began to beat him. I don’t know what happened to him later. I think they killed him.
The Armenians by pincers tore the beard from the one side of Ilgar’s face, leaving the other hairy, and then began to mock and abuse him. Following Karo’s instructions, they did not give us bread and water.
On 1 March 1992 Karo shot Shahmali’s son Faiq in the yard of that Police Department for not naming Ganja as “Kirovabad”. I didn’t see it by myself, but I learnt that from the inhabitants of Khojaly whose names I can’t remember now. I heard Faiq’s screams while Karo and his assistants were torturing him in the adjacent cell. He was a very brave man. He abused the Armenians for their cruelty, and they began to torture him more severely. In March 1992 they put me, my sister Durdana and two 12-13- years-old girls from Khojaly, whom I did not know, in UAZ car and brought us to the Azerbaijan side.