My heart goes out to

Firdaus, Haneef and Hania.

Three people who must be going through the worst phase of their lives right now.

I am no journalist, and I have not poked into the nooks and crannies of the entire affair, so am not one to judge. But if Mohd. Haneef is actually innocent, then it is a terrible ordeal that he is being subjected to.

Imagine leaving in a hurry to see your just born. And imagine never getting there, but instead being sentenced to 23 hr solitary confinement, in a land far away from baby and wife, and other loved ones.

And all this because of his so called 'reckless' support to terrorists. If donating a SIM card is all that one needs to be guilty of, then my BIL is a terrorist!

When he came over to B'lore immediately after his studies, he too had a pre-paid sim card. Once he got into a career, he got himself a postpaid connection, but since all you need to do is to fill in money to keep the pre-paid SIM going, he gave the prepaid SIM to another needy friend. This needy friend, once out of his need, donated it to another and so the chain went, over a period of 5 years, until finally it landed up in the mobile phone of one of our close friends. Now this friend has left just recently for Dubai, and so the SIM is I-don't-know-where! I sure hope it doesn't land into the hands of some terrorist, for in that case, my BIL could also be branded as a reckless supporter of terrorism.

Unfortunately for Haneef, his SIM card was given to Sabeel/Kafeel, labelled the terrorist brothers. We can't all chose our relatives, can we? And we can't all be held responsible for what our second cousins do. Going by that logic, Firdaus asks whether Australia will round up all relatives of Kafeel...

Poor Firdaus. At a time when she should be taking rest, and enjoying the sights and smells of her new born babe, surrounded by the love of her husband and family, she is running from pillar to post for a fair trial for Haneef.
Who must be going through his own personal hell if he is innocent. It must be awful to be so near release, and home, and then to see it all taken away from you. To see no one at all, leave alone his baby.


The only suspicious thing I could find(pointed out to me by my husband) is that he had a one-way ticket to India. Didn't he mean to return to his workplace? If so, for what reasons? Innocent, ordinary ones, like being close to his wife, newborn, sister, Mom and newborn niece? Or were the reasons a little more complicated and more devious? Surely if the latter were the case, the authorities would have found more incriminating evidence by now? Other than a mere donated sim card?

I hope Firdaus gets to see the father of her baby united with her baby soon. Baby Hania. Whose name means happiness. But who couldn't have popped out at a more unhappy time, the poor baby.