Almost 24 hours after WION correspondent Anas Mallick was released by the Taliban in Afghanistan, the rest of his crew, hired locally and abducted along with him, were released by the militant organisation on Saturday. They were kept in detention for nearly two days and bear wounds and bruises that show both were assaulted.

The crew members—Zakariya, who is the local producer and Mayel Kharoti, the driver—were released by the Taliban after a 42-hour ordeal.

The pictures that have come to the fore illustrate the cruelty which they were subjected to, a clear sign that Taliban 2.0 is no different from the previous regime of the militant group.

The group was detained on Thursday while taking generic visuals of Kabul. Their assignment was to cover the Taliban takeover anniversary but it also came around the time of the killing of Ayman al Zawahiri, the al Qaeda terror group chief, in a US missile strike. Anas has also reported from near the house where he was killed.

The crew have been instructed by the Taliban authorities to be present when summoned in future.

These two Afghans were hired to help Anas with the coverage.

Since their abduction, WION had made all-out efforts seeking their release, which eventually succeeded.

But it appears that the Taliban are threatened by our ground reporting in Kabul as WION's reporter was abducted while he was reporting, with all the necessary permissions.

On Friday, only Anas was allowed to walk free, whereas the local producer and the driver were kept in captivity by the Taliban. They had said that they will be releasing them soon.

Here's what exactly happened to him:

Anas says...

"We were duly accredited, we had all the press credentials and were filming general visuals when we were intercepted, taken out of the car... dragged off the car to be very precise. Our phones were taken away.

And then we were physically assaulted. My crew was assaulted and I was assaulted as well.

After some while, we were shifted from the place where were intercepted to what we know is the intelligence unit of the Afghan-Taliban. We were handcuffed, blindfolded, and faced the wildest accusations and after that were questioned thoroughly on our journalistic credentials as well. Personal questions were also hurled at us."

Anas is WION's reporter based out in Pakistan's capital. Anas has been reporting on Afghanistan developments for nearly five years for WION. He has done some exclusive, on-the-ground coverage when the Taliban took over Kabul last year.

Expressing his anger, Anas said that it's something you would never expect for an accredited journalist, for an international journalist for somebody who has been known to the Taliban as well.

He said, "We were the only Indian network in Kabul at the time of the fall of Kabul. And we were there three months post-takeover. I was literally at all the press conferences, at all the press briefings and despite all of this, it happened so it was a very bad dream."