Shaikh family reels under double blow

“My son is not a terrorist. He has been framed by someone for vendetta,” said Aziza,clutching a photo of son Riyaz in their small home in Koyla Bhuvan Chawl,Ratan Nagar,Dahisar. Riyaz is a salesman at an apparel shop at Thakkar Mall — one of the alleged targets of the two suspects —in Borivali. Abdul sold TV covers and plastic merchandise at Manish Market,not far from another alleged target,the Mangaldas Market.

Riyaz’s parents claim Riyaz or Abdul could not have plotted any attack. They said Riyaz’s closest brush with law was six months ago when parents of a girl he was into a relationship with complained to the police. “Riyaz was never one to get into any fights. For the past four years,he had been working at the mall. He has been in a relationship with the girl for the past year. Around six months back,Malad police summoned us after her parents complained. We were let off after she gave a statement to police that they were in a relationship,” said Aziza.

Aziza is a vegetable vendor and Abu Bakr sells cutlery on the roadside. Both their daughters are married,one of them to Latif. Riyaz’s younger brother Khurshid is also a salesman.

Riyaz’s family hails from Nandura near Bhusawal. Abdul’s family hails from Ahmedabad.

At Abdul’s home in Bandra’s Behrampada slum,his wife Nusrat Bano was distraught. Her husband had left on Friday morning for work at Manish Market and didn’t return in the evening. She got a call from the ATS on Saturday asking her to reach their Kalachowkie office. Shortly,she got news of her brother’s arrest,too.

According to the family,Abdul has been working at the same shop for 10 years now. He earns Rs 200 a day and had recently informed his family that his owners wanted to send him to Pakistan for some work and that he’d need a passport. A neighbour,who did not want to be named,said passport verification was completed last week. “He did not have Rs 500 to give the verification agent and asked me for money. And still,in the last few months,he arranged for home appliances for his family including a new fridge,” the neighbour said,adding the family had seen some prosperity in the last month.

According to Nusrat,Abdul would sometimes return home after about eight days. Alifa,his mother,said he had dropped out of school after Class IX. “After that,every single day has been spent trying to make both ends meet. We never asked him why he wanted to go abroad. We assumed it was for better prospects,” she said.

Riyaz’s family said he was a keen learner and had mastered English solely by reading. “He loves to be well-dressed and speaks English. He had learnt computers from friends but never did any work related to computers,” claimed Aziza.

At Rudraksh,the apparel shop where Riyaz worked,its owner described him as a dedicated worker.  “He has been working here for the past four years. He never bunked work and in fact had told me about the Malad police summoning him six months back. The only person he would talk to was his girlfriend and there were no complaints that I ever received against him. Nor were there any ‘police problems’. In fact for the past two days when he didn’t turn up,our clientele has been suffering,” said the owner.  

“We saw him last on Friday morning when we left for work but he did not return that evening or the evening after that. I initially thought he must have gone to his friend’s house. We began to get worried when his father received a call from police on Saturday night. Our daughter Nusrat also called us and said that her husband Latif had also not returned home yet,” said Aziza,adding Nusrat was married to Abdul seven years ago. The couple has two daughters.