“It is not a missing case,” said Mohammed Iftequaruddin, the girl’s father. “My daughter Mariam has been kidnapped,” he told Arab News from the holy city. “She is a smart and mature child; she knows all our numbers; if she had gone missing, she would have immediately called me or her mother.”
He said this was not the first time they had visited Makkah. “We have been here every year for Umrah. She is in the custody of some evil people who are not allowing her to contact us,” he alleged choking on his words.
Iftequaruddin comes from the south Indian city of Hyderabad and has been in Saudi Arabia for the last 17 years. He has spent most of his career as a civil engineer in the Eastern Province cities of Dammam, Alkhobar, Jubail and Al-Khafji. He is currently employed with Al-Dulaiman Contracting Est. and is based in Jubail. The missing girl was born in Al-Khafji and was raised in the Kingdom. She is the second of Iftequaruddin’s five children.
Recalling the moments before they lost Mariam, her father said: “It was Saturday, Aug. 28. The time was around 1:15 p.m. We had completed all our religious obligations. We said our noon prayers in the Holy Mosque and as agreed with the tour operators, we were to be back in our Jubail-bound coach by 2 p.m. All of us, myself, my wife, our four daughters and a son, came out of the Holy Mosque from the Safa-Marwa side. Our bus was parked in Ghazza area, which is a mere 10-minute walk from the Marwa side. There is a lot of construction activity going on in that area and a small road leads to where the coaches are parked. I was ahead with my son. Mariam and her sisters were with their mother closely following behind. It was at this point that Mariam’s mother gave her some one-riyal bills to be distributed among the beggars that lined the street. That was the last Mariam’s mother saw of her. When I turned around I saw Mariam distributing the riyals and I told her to rush lest we miss the bus. She seemed to me to have nodded in acknowledgement.”
When they reached the coach they realized Mariam was missing. “All this happened within minutes,” said Iftequaruddin. “I thought she may have been caught up somewhere. So I went back to look for her. She was nowhere. It was well past 2 now. All those who had come by the coach to perform Umrah went looking for Mariam. The little ones were crying. Meanwhile, the coach had to leave because there were people on board who had to be in Jubail the next day for work. Not knowing what to do next, I decided to send my wife and children back to Jubail. I thought their presence would only complicate the search efforts. Moreover, we didn’t know what to do and where to stay in Makkah. My wife and the children left with the coach at 3:30 p.m.”
Immediately after his family left for Jubail, Iftequaruddin doubled up the search efforts. “I was very hopeful that I would locate my daughter. I looked around areas surrounding the Holy Mosque and when it was time for Asr, I said my prayers in the Holy Mosque. When there was no trace and no call on the cell phone in the next two hours, I went to the closest police station and lodged a formal complaint. They took down all the details — my cell number, home address, everything — and promised to call back later.”
The father even went to the lost-and-found center located with the Grand Mosque. “It is more than three days now and there is no trace of Mariam. I spend all my time in the Holy Mosque. My relatives in India are worried. Every time there is a new number on my cell phone I leap to answer it, thinking it is from my beloved daughter. I have not slept all this while, how can I?” said Iftequaruddin. “If you want to report this in your newspaper, go ahead. I don’t think anything will come of it. My daughter has been kidnapped,” he said in a voice full of hopelessness. “I have visited a number of hospitals as well.”
Khaja Tauqeer Ahmed, a close friend of the family, said the police asked Mariam’s father a number of uncomfortable but relevant questions. Among them was if she had some kind of a quarrel with her mother or father or if there was any marriage proposal that the family had rejected.
“Basically they wanted to make sure that Mariam had not gone missing deliberately,” said Tauqeer Ahmed. “Iftequaruddin, who is my childhood friend, told the police that there was no such issue. Mariam has had no quarrel with anybody nor was there any marriage proposal that they had rejected.”
He said he has known Mariam since childhood. “She is very pious, obedient and a good-natured person. She is Grade 9 student at the International Indian School in Jubail and has done very well in her studies. She has memorized seven parts of the Holy Qur’an and till the day she left for Makkah, she led the special night prayers for women in a Jubail neighborhood. The suggestion that she might have ‘eloped’ is out of the question,” said Tauqeer Ahmed. “Hundred percent.”
Shocked expatriates in Jubail, Jeddah and Riyadh are conducting special prayers for her safe return. “She is in our prayers,” said Mohammad Zahid, a Jubail-based expatriate whose daughter knows Mariam very well.
“We are in touch with the family. All of them are distraught. May Allah unite them with their child. May Allah protect Mariam,” said Zahid’s wife Shahana. “We request everybody to pray for the family. They need our prayers. May Allah answer our prayers in this blessed month of Ramadan. Aameen.”