It’s 3.30 pm and Aasiya Begum is still not hungry. She says she lost her appetite when her son, Syed Khwaja Yunus, disappeared two years ago. ‘‘Sirf zinda rehne ke liye khaate hain (I just eat to live),’’ she rued, hours after she and Yunus’s older brother Syed Khwaja Hussain arrived in the city.Last week, the state CID arrested four officers of the Mumbai Crime Branch—including senior inspector and encounter specialist Praful Bhosale—and charged them with Yunus’s murder and destroying evidence.The arrests have weakened the police theory that Yunus, a chemical engineer, had escaped from custody on January 7, 2003, after he was arrested in connection with the Ghatkopar blast case.‘‘Yeh to shuruaat hai (This is the beginning),’’ she thundered in the presence of a few television cameras. ‘‘My son’s murderers should be hanged.’’Son Hussain steps in. ‘‘All he was worried about was our comfort and our sister’s wedding.’’The middle-class family of eight living in Parbhani bylane survived on Hussain’s income as a school teacher and the family’s STD booth earnings.When Yunus got a job with a German engineering firm in Dubai, the family saw hope. ‘‘He was so brilliant they were paying him Rs 50,000 a month,’’ Hussain said.For a 27-year-old who had moved from a Marathi-medium school to studying engineering in Aurangabad, the salary meant the possibility of renovating his house and buying a car.After 18 months away from home, Yunus returned to Parbhani on December 1, 2002, to celebrate Eid with his family—and find himself a bride.‘‘We would chat until 3 am. He would tell me how Indians there are doing better than everybody else,’’ Hussain recalled. But within a month, Yunus was picked up by the Mumbai police for allegedly conspiring with blast accused Dr Abdul Mateen in Dubai. Fourteen days later, he had disappeared.Hussain’s last meeting with his brother, four days before his disappearance, was brief. ‘‘He just said, ‘Tell ammi I haven’t done anything and I will come back’,’’ he recalled.Yunus’s father, Ayub, shunted from Mumbai to Parbhani fighting for justice until he passed away last year. ‘‘He died a martyr fighting for his son,’’ said Aasiya Begum.‘‘Yunus was harmless. As a child, he was afraid of cockroaches. He was not even physically strong. He could not take the torture.’’Cops skip visit to CID officeMumbai: The state CID probing Yunus’s disappearance had summoned them. But ACP Ambadas Pote, Inspectors Arun Borude and Rajendra Joshi, Sub-Inspectors K Thorat and Ashok Gore did not visit the CID office on Tuesday. Instead, Pote, Borude and Joshi sent a message saying they were unwell. Their ‘‘non-cooperative tactics’’ have not gone down well with the CID. ‘‘If you are innocent, why are you playing hide and seek?’’ asked DCP (CID) Sudesh Padvi. —ENS
