In an echo of an emotional potboiler of Bollywood, two sisters from Fujairah (UAE) are in Hyderabad on an emotional mission of tracing their long-lost mother.
Twenty-nine-year-old Ayesha Rasheed Eid Obaid and 27-year-old Fatima Rasheed were in the city to search for their mother Razia who after getting divorced by her husband more than two and a half decades ago had returned home to never meet her daughters again.
Though this is their second such visit to the city in four years, the Rasheed sisters were more hopeful this time as the top police officials were taking active interest in their case and have fanned out their teams in parts of old city to trace Razia believed to be in her fifties.
“We have found some clues from the information provided by the two sisters including a photo copy of her old passport and a faded photograph. We are also trying to locate her house and relatives with the help of a Qazi who had solemnized the marriage almost 35 years ago”, said V Satyanaryana, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, South Zone.
“Our father had told us about our mother while on death bed about 15 years ago. He had asked us to try to find her and meet her. But at the time we had no idea how to do it. But after our marriage with the help of our husbands we are here to find our mother”, said Burqa clad Fatima.
According to the information pieced together from the sisters statement and available documents the story of Razia goes like this.
A resident of Barkas, an Arab neighborhood in Hyderabad, Zaheda was married to Fujairah resident Rasheed Eid Obaid Masmery on December 7, 1981 and went to UAE. After bearing two daughters Rasheed divorced her in 1988 and she came back home.
later Rasheed married another Hyderabadi woman Zaheda who brought up the two girls and still living in Fujairah with her other two children. It was believed that Zaheda was aware where Razia was but did not cooperate with the girl in tracing her.
The police was also trying to find out whether after her return to Hyderabad Razia Begum had remarried or not.
Police sources said that they were able to trace some of the close relatives of Razia and through them trying to reach her. “If that happens, it will indeed be a very happy ending to a long and sad story”, a police official said
Ayesha and Fatiam were excited about the prospects. “Our only wish is to meet our long lost mother. If possible we will take her along with us back to Fujairah”, said Ayesha.