17 January,2017 07:36 AM IST | | Rupsa Chakraborty
Parsi woman from Mumbai in Dubai continues to fight for her return to city with her twin sons after husband leaves her tortured, homeless and penniless in foreign land
Zainab Fawad with her twin sons in Dubai. (Inset) Fawad, who is absconding
It's been more than a three-year long fight for Mumbaikar-living-in-Dubai Zainab Fawad (44) to get reunited with her twin sons, after her husband sent them away to Pakistan and tortured and abused her. While mother and sons are together now, it's not over yet. Zainab is desperate to return to her home in India, but says the authorities in Dubai have refused to return her passport.
Farhat Ali Khan, the lawyer from Lucknow who stays in Dubai and has been helping Zainab
Forty-four-year-old Parsi Zainab's story could easily have been the grim script of a movie.
After falling in love with a Pakistani colleague while working in Dubai, she married him and converted to Islam against her family's wishes, only to face torture and harassment at his hands after a few years, as well as separation from her twin boys.
It was only December 30 that she was reunited with her sons. Despite her repeated attempts to return to Mumbai with her children, she has been unable to as the authorities in Dubai are refusing to return her passport, which is with a Sharjah court since 2013, when she pledged it to secure Fawad's release in a defamation case.
"Because of this, I couldn't go to Mumbai even when my mother died⦠I couldn't attend her last rites," Zainab said.
Ugly side of love
Zainab first landed in Dubai in 2003 and found a job with a Jebel Ali company that manufactured clothes' hangers. There, she met Fawad, who was working as a production manager. After a few years of courtship, they got married in 2007 in Karachi. In 2012, Zainab delivered twin boys - Mustafa and Muzammil - in Mumbai. A few months later she returned to Dubai and started living with Fawad.
Soon, Fawad left his job and started an event management firm in her name.
"We both left our jobs and got into the business. Things started going downhill when I went to Mumbai to deliver my twins. His business started failing and our fights became worse. He sent our sons, who hold Indian passports, with his mother to Pakistan on a three-month visa, but kept them there illegally for three years. I was rendered homeless, penniless and without my children," Zainab told mid-day from Dubai.
As if that wasn't enough, she got arrested in 2014 due to the several cheque-bounce cases against her after the failure of their event management company. "I went to the police to report about my missing wallet, instead got arrested when they found out that several cheque-bounce cases were registered against me," she said. "Later, a friend bailed me out by submitting his passport to the police."
In 2015, Zainab was again arrested, twice. And last year, her visa expired, because of which she is now jobless in Dubai.
A helping hand at last
Sleeping on roads with no money or a job, she first got help after some residents of Dubai came to her rescue. Farhat Ali Khan, a lawyer from Lucknow who resides in Dubai, was one of them.
"We wrote to the Ministry of External Affairs (office of Sushma Swaraj), Consular General of India in Dubai, and the High Commission in Islamabad about the case. Only after pressure was built on Fawad through all these channels did he release the children," said Khan.
"Fawad's mother, with whom the children were, said that she knew her son was wrong but had to support him."
Where is Fawad?
Taking to mid-day from Pakistan, his mother Rukhsana Dagra admitted, "I was called to Dubai to take the children to Pakistan. They had a three-month visa, but I kept them for three years."
"I am unable to trace him (Fawad). I last spoke to him in November when I tried to counsel him. But he got angry and asked me to take his side. I knew that my son was wrong and I didn't want to put my grandsons' future in jeopardy; so I took her side. Since then, he has not been in touch with me," she added.
Despite repeated attempts, mid-day couldn't get in touch with Fawad as none of his old phone numbers were functional.
Homesick and desperate
Zainab is staying with her children in a rented room at the moment. She said she wants to return to Mumbai to her sister and start her life afresh.
"The court is refusing to return my passport, even though my divorce is in process. It says that it will return my passport if he surrenders, but he's completely untraceable," she said.
"I need my passport to renew visas for myself as well as my sons. I have only three months, after which my sons will have to leave. I don't know where they will be taken away to."
Khan said they have written to the Indian government seeking help but haven't got any response yet. "We have written several letters to the office of Sushma Swaraj. A little help from the government to rescue this woman would have been appreciated," he added.
