Hyderabad woman waiting for 39 years to find daughter in Kuwait

HYDERABAD: Dilal Mohammed alias Saleha was last seen 39 years ago. That was in Kuwait. Ever since, nobody has a clue on her whereabouts. Sayeda Fatima Begum, a resident of Chandrayangutta in the Old City, is running from pillar to post and knocking every possible door to trace her daughter Saleha.
In a last-ditch attempt, Fatima shared a video urging external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to help trace Saleha. "I want to see my daughter before I die," she said in a letter to the minister. Not stopping at that, she also approached the Indian embassy in Kuwait on Monday. She sent documents that could help locate Saleha. The Indian embassy acknowledged receiving details about Saleha from social worker Amjed Ullah Khan.

Fatima Begum of Hashimabad in Chandrayangutta married Kuwaiti national Mohammed Hijab Alajmi of Fahaheel district in 1978 in Hyderabad and went off to Kuwait. When she became pregnant and was ill, Alajmi sent her to India with a promise to take her back to Kuwait. Fatima gave birth to Saleha in 1979.

When her husband did not respond to her letters, she wrote to the Indian embassy which traced Alajmi's family. As fate willed otherwise, Alajmi was killed in a road accident in Damam in Saudi Arabia and his first wife's son came to India and took both Fatima and Saleha to Kuwait in 1980.

Upon reaching Kuwait, Fatima's life took a turn for worse as Alajmi's first wife's family claimed the monetary benefits accruing from his death. "I attempted suicide because of the mental trauma I had gone through. Alajmi's son brought me back to India but left me at the Mumbai airport and vanished. Some people took pity on me and sent me back to Hyderabad," she said, recounting the incident in 1981.

Fatima, who married an Indian national in Kuwait, travelled to the Gulf in 1987 and made attempts to find her daughter but in vain. During the height of Kuwait-Iraq war in 1991, she returned to India and didn't go back.