By Muhammad Shahzad
“I cannot sleep at night. I feel like my soul has been wrenched out of my body,” says Kiran Abrar, the mother of a 14-year-old girl, Khansa, who has reportedly gone to Syria to join Daesh. “Her picture is etched in my mind. I wake up screaming at night, remembering my daughter. Where is she? Is she alive or dead? Is she in safe hands or suffering in misery?
There are no answers to Kirans questions. And deep down, the inconsolable mother knows this. Had she been aware of her daughters fate, she says she would have never let her go. My husband died when Khansa and our other three children were very young. I had to work extremely hard to raise them. I even asked for fitraana, sadqa and zakaat at times. Now, she has left me to bear the cruelties of life alone, she says of her radicalised teenage daughter.
Kiran married Abrar Haider around 15 years ago, but Haider died of an electric shock some 10 years later. After her husbands demise, Kiran lived with her in-laws at their house in Gulshan Park on Multan Road, Lahore. In August last year, she moved in with her parents, who live near Sutar Mills in Manawan, and took her children along.
In the first week of September, Khansas paternal grandmother, 70-year-old Fatima Bibi, and a family friend, Farhana Hamid, approached Kiran and requested to take the teenage girl with them. Initially, I refused, but they kept insisting, shares Kiran. Presuming then that Khansa was going to help her aging grandmother, she allowed her daughter to go with them. Three days later, I received a call from Fatima Bibi saying Khansa had gone missing.
Kiran subsequently rushed to Hanjarwal police station and registered a complaint over the abduction of her daughter. She says police registered a case against Farhana Hamid on the complaint of Fatima Bibi. Upon investigating, police found that Farhana Hamid of Wahdat Colony had escorted Khansa to Syria. Farhana had taken her four children along too, they learnt. Moreover, one Bushra Cheema of Johar Town also accompanied them along with her children.
DSP anti-terrorism squad of CIA Lahore Tariq Kiyani is investigating the case. He says they are yet make a breakthrough in terms of tracing the suspect responsible for travel and other arrangements. To a question about uncovering ISIS recruitment networks, the DSP said they were still looking to find a lead.
Fatima Bibi claims she had no idea their family friend Farhana was plotting to take her granddaughter to Syria. But then, this is not the first time Fatima Bibi has lost a family member to Daesh. In April last year, her daughter Irshad Bibi left for Syria to join the militant outfit, while Irshads younger son Bilal is also suspected to have gone to Syria in February 2015 on the pretext of leaving Pakistan to work in Dubai.
I have had a lifetime of suffering. My son Abrar was just five years old when my husband died, shares Fatima Bibi, a mother of three. I worked as a maid to raise my children. When my son was old enough to feed me, he died of an electric shock. After Abrar and Irshad, my other daughter Salma took care of me.
Irshads husband, too, died when the children were still young. Fatima Bibi says Irshad had always been very pious and obedient. She prayed and recited the Holy Quran regularly. She even taught at a madrassah near Sakeem Mor and would visit places outside Lahore to attend dars.
Fatima Bibi says Irshad Bibi had left her home in March saying she was going to attend a Dars-e-Quran in Okara, but never returned. Irshads daughter Ammara later found a diary in which Irshad had written a goodbye note to her mother and daughter. Fatima Bibi shares her daughter sometimes calls her from Syria, asking for forgiveness and prayers. She says Irshad told her that she has left for the service of Islam and asks her mother to do the same.
While Fatima Bibis wounds seem to have become somewhat less painful with time, her daughter-in-law Kiran is finding it hard to comprehend what has happened. Theres one thing that boggles her mind to no end: how could she have been living in the same house and not know what was happening?