Arms wide open

Amani Fathima’s family wants she and her children to return from Syria. Will the government help?

- LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN

A FEW HUNDRED metres from the bustling Kurla West railway station in Mumbai is a quiet old building called White House. It is a block of typical middle-class apartments, with a facade of shops and a rear entrance that leads to apartments above. When I entered the building on a Wednesday afternoon, there was hardly any light in the foyer. The name board listed the person I was looking for: Nazeem Ahmed—602.

A creaky elevator took me to the sixth floor. I knocked on a wooden door screened by a sturdy grille, and a frail man in blue lungi, white shirt and kuficap came out. A woman wearing a headscarf peered at me from behind him. “Amani Fathima,” I said. The man let me in, and the woman began to cry. “Do you know Fathima?” she asked.

Nazeem Ahmed, 62, and his wife, Husna Ara, 54, had last heard from their daughter-in-law five years ago. Amani Fathima had gone to Syria with her husband, Hussaifa, and their son Kisar in 2014. They had two more children, Yahya and Ayisha, after joining Islamic State. Hussaifa died in 2018, when IS was fighting to retain its strongholds in Syria.

Nazeem and Husna knew their son had died, but they did not know where Fathima and the children were. As Husna sobbed, her daughter Saba came to her side and held her. When they looked inquiringly, I showed them pictures of Fathima and the children at a camp for IS refugees in Al-Hol in Syria. THE WEEK had visited Syria last December and had spoken to Fathima. She had told me that she wanted to leave the camp and return to India.

Husna let out a wail as she saw the picture. Saba consoled her and told me, “Meri bhabi itni khubsurat thi [My sister-in-law was so beautiful].”