Aaliyah Kashyap & Ida Ali recall being Held Hostage by House Help

Aaliyah Kashyap and Ida Ali recalled when they were held hostage by a house help during a robbery.

Aaliyah and Ida, who are the daughters of Anurag Kashyap and Imtiaz Ali, grew up together.

Ida was a guest on Aaliyah’s Young, Dumb & Anxious podcast and the pair recalled an incident from their childhood.

Discussing “trauma bonding”, the friends spoke about when they were held hostage by the house help who worked at their house.

Aaliyah said they were “not kidnapped technically because we were at home. We were a part of a robbery”.

But Ida added that they “don’t know what could have happened” as they “were taken hostages”.

At the time, their families lived in the same building.

On the day of the robbery, their parents were going out together so Ida stayed at Aaliyah’s home and the latter’s grandmother looked after the children.

Aaliyah explained: “Her parents and my parents were going out together somewhere and she (Ida) was staying at my house and my nani was there.

“My nani was watching us and so was our didi, who was working in our house at the time.”

Things then took a dramatic turn when the house help locked her grandmother in one room and tied the girls to a chair.

Aaliyah continued: “She locked my nani in the room in the evening after my parents left.

“She taped Ida and my mouth, tied our hands to a chair.

“We were crying and freaking out because we thought we are going to die.”

“So basically she was stealing stuff from the house. She was stealing jewellery and money or whatever was in the house.”

Although it was a scary ordeal, it only lasted 15 minutes as Aaliyah’s mother had forgotten something. She returned home to discover a hostage situation.

Aaliyah said: “Thankfully, my mom had left something and she came back like 15-20 minutes later to pick it up and she saw everything that had happened and she called her parents, my Dad everyone back and they like freaked out.

“It was obviously traumatic but it would have been a lot more traumatic if we went through that alone.”

Despite the experience, Ida said that when she looks back at it, “it’s a fun story that we share” while Aaliyah now “laughs about” it.