New Delhi:
The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notices to the Ministries of Home and External Affairs on the plea of Nikhat Parveen, a 22-year-old who is seeking that her husband Fasih Mohammad, who was picked up from their home in Saudi Arabia 16 days ago and has been missing since, be brought before the court. Nikhat wants to know where her husband, allegedly accused of terror charges, is.
This is Nikhat’s story:
Fasih, an engineer employed in a firm in Saudi Arabia, was allegedly picked up from his flat in Al Jubal by some people who claimed to be intelligence officers, on May 13, 2012.
Nikhat Parveen, his wife of eight months, who is two months pregnant and had only joined Fasih in Saudi Arabia in March this year, says they were having lunch when the four people in plainclothes arrived at their door, searched through their belongings and confiscated her husband's laptop and mobile phone before leading him away. "He told me he was being taken for questioning and may not come back. I was then told he was being deported. I was in shock and could barely comprehend what was going on...and then they took my husband away."
Nikhat says she contacted the Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia and also Saudi officials but claims that they denied having any information in this regard. Nikhat then returned to India, to see media reports that Fasih had links to the Indian Mujahideen terror group and so had been deported and arrested.
The 22-year-old says she wrote to every one she could to appeal that her husband was innocent and should be returned. "I shot off letters to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Ministry of Minority Affairs, Ministry of External Affairs in Saudi Arabia, Saudi Consulate General in India, Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, National Human Rights Commission, Prime Minister of India, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and home secretaries of Bihar, Delhi, Maharashtra and Karnataka," she said. The MEA, she claimed responded, only to say they had no information. Nikhat says she also met Home Secretary R K Singh, who, she claimed, said he knew nothing about such a person.
Nikhat then moved the Supreme Court which has, mapart from issuing notices to the MEA and Home Ministry, also issued notices to the Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and other state governments.
Nikhat told court that she had last heard from her husband a few days ago, when he called to say he was alright, but could not disclose his location.
Fasih Mohammad, belongs to Barh Saaila village in Darbhanga district of Bihar and his family is well-to-do, says Nikhat. Fasih's father, Firoz Ahmad, is a government doctor and his mother is a school teacher. A family friend, who is helping Parveen out in New Delhi, claims Fasih's is the 14th such arrest from Darbhanga district in the past few months.
Police in several states have zeroed in on men from Darbhanga in their investigations into terror attacks. Last year, two men were arrested in connection with the July 13 Mumbai blasts. Another man was picked up in Delhi last month. On May 13, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar wrote to Karnataka CM DV Sadanand Gowda protesting at the way a team from that state arrested a Md Kafil Akhtar from Darbhanga district in the April 2010 Chinnaswamy Stadium blast in Bangalore. The Karnataka team arrested the suspect without informing the Bihar police.
Fasih also got his BTech degree in mechanical engineering from a college in Bhatkal, Karnataka, and there are allegations that he is close to the Bhatkal brothers who founded the Indian Mujahideen. His wife says that just because he has a degree from a college in Bhatkal, does not mean he can be arrested
Nikhat is an IT graduate, was in her first year of MBA when she married Fasih in September last year. Fasih had been working in Saudi Arabia since 2007
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