Hyderabad floods: Distraught parents await return of missing son

It is nearly three months since Amair went missing after falling into the swollen Musi near Kishanbagh after the gates of Himayat Sagar were opened due to the heavy rains

Hyderabad: Confused, depressed and uncertain, Khatija Begum sits on a bed in her tile roofed home in Asadbaba Nagar of Kishanbagh, awaiting news of her son.

It is nearly three months but there has been no news on the whereabouts of Shaik Amair, the only son of Khatija and Shaik Mehtab.

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It was on October 18 last year that Amair went missing after falling into the swollen River Musi near Kishanbagh after the gates of Himayat Sagar were opened due to the heavy rains. Since then, almost every day, the family has kept visiting the police station en route to the Musi in the hope of getting some positive news. The visits have been in vain so far.

The uncertainty over what happened to Amair turned into an unbearable fear of loss when they were told by religious scholars that before performing any ritual or ceremony presuming Amair was not alive anymore, they would first have to believe firmly that he was not alive anymore. That is something impossible for a mother. “How can I believe it? He was very young,” cries Khatija Begum.

The family has now restarted efforts to trace the body at least. “If we get the body, we can give it a proper burial. The police did call us on three instances and showed us bodies, but they were not of Amair,” says Shaik Ishaq, Amair’s cousin.

There is another bitter fact as well. The government had announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the kin of those who died in the October floods. However, according to police records, Amair is still missing and the family is not eligibile for the compensation.

According to the FIR filed at the Bahadurpura police station on October 18, around 3.30 pm, Amair, who worked as a painter, along with a few of his friends had gone to see the rising water levels in the Musi when he fell into the gushing waters. The gates of Himayat Sagar, about 10 km upstream, were opened for the second time the previous night.

D Durga Prasad, SHO Bahadurpura, said a case was registered and a look out notice sent to all the police stations in the city and neighbouring districts. “Thrice we were alerted about bodies being found on the Musi River course and we contacted the family of Amair. However, they could not identify it,” he said.

 

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