Hyderabadi woman reunited with daughters after 26 years

Mangalore Today News Network

Hyderabad, Jul 22, 2016: It was an emotional reunion for 60-year-old Nazia Begum with her two daughters after a gap of 26 years on Thursday with the Hyderabad Police playing the role of a good samaritan.

 

Nazia, who hails from Bidar in Karnataka, along with her relatives anxiously waited at the office of Deputy Commissioner of Police at Purani Haveli. At around 5 pm, her daughters – Ayesha and Fatima – along with their husbands and children came to the office.

Emotions filled the room as the two women moved forward and held their mother in a long, teary embrace.

“We never thought we would meet our mother in lifetime. Allah had fixed the meeting and we are glad that we got to see our mother after 26 long years,” Ayesha and Fatima said.

DCP V Satyanarayana said Nazia, who belonged to Santoshnagar in the Old City of Hyderabad, was married to UAE national Rasheed Eid Obaid Rifaq Masmari in 1981. When she left for Fujairah province in the UAE to join her husband a few days later, she was shocked to find that he was already married.

With no other option, Nazia stayed with her husband for four years and gave birth to two daughters Ayesha Rasheed and Fatima Rasheed. Shortly after Fatima’s birth, Rasheed divorced her and sent her back to India. But he did not allow Nazia to take her daughters with her.

Nazia’s poor and uneducated family could not do much to help her. A couple of years later, her parents married her off to a fruit vendor from Bidar. Nazia now has three children - two sons and a daughter from the second marriage.

While she had practically lost all hope of seeing her daughters from her first marriage, Ayesha and Fatima did not give up their quest to find their mother.

Now aged 29 and 26, Ayesha and Fatima who live in the UAE, came to Hyderabad in search of their mother in January this year. Armed with only a photograph of Nazia, they approached the Hyderabad police to trace their mother. The daughters have been in Hyderabad since their arrival.

“We made extensive search for Nazia. With the help of old Qazis and marriage hall owners in Hyderabad, we could get some clues about her. We could finally trace her to Bidar after six months,” Satyanarayana said.

Nazia had fading memories about her daughters because she had seen them last 26 years ago. All she could remember was her younger daughter had six fingers. That piece of information turned out to be the clincher which helped the police confirm the identities of mother and daughters and arrange their meeting.