Dubai: A 32-year-old Uzbek woman who made a fake bomb and kept Dubai Police at bay for 13 hours on Sunday was driven to take her desperate action after years of trying to prove her son was fathered by an Emirati man.
Zulfiya Hamraeva’s actions of strapping on a fake bomb and refusing to end her threat to Dubai Public Prosecutor’s Office may land her at least three years in prison, followed by deportation for disturbing and threatening behaviour — or 15 years if officials determine she threatened national security.
All Zulfiya wants to prove is her son’s father is an Emirati. According to Major General Khamis Mattar Al Mazeina of Dubai Police, Zulfiya was in an Urfi marriage.
Under Sharia law, an Urfi marriage is where two or more witness a marriarge on paper, but it is not registered in the courts. Zulfiya’s husband tore up the contract and denied being the child’s father. She filed a case in Ajman court when she was pregnant. A DNA test found the Emirati was not the boy’s father. She had been accused but was cleared of a charge of adultery.
Zulfiya disputes the DNA test and demands an Emirati passport for her son, who has no official papers, ID or legal status. She has been living illegally in the UAE for a decade. The boy has been taken into care by social workers and Dubai Police.
First-hand accounts of the scare at Public Prosecution
Ashok, Nepalese: “I was having lunch in the pantry at noon... When I came out I was surprised to find the entire floor empty. That is when I realised there was something wrong. I saw this woman and a boy standing in the middle and she had something in her hand which she was threatening to press and there were policemen on the other side. I went back to the pantry and stayed there for sometime. I was really scared, I kept the door little ajar and was watching her. Then I realised that she hadn’t seen me so I sneaked out from the side door. Whether the bomb was real is different question. At that moment I was really scared because I didn’t know what was happening and I sensed my life was in danger. Thank God everything is OK now.”
Mujtaba, Sudanese: “It happened in a matter of seconds. This woman came in abaya and declared at the reception that she had a bomb. She removed the abaya and showed her supposedly explosives-laden belt and people started running and shouting. Police arrived in five minutes. I was at my desk translating just a few metres away from where this woman was standing. When police came they evacuated the building and I too went out. Police started negotiating with the woman but they were not able to get the woman under control. She seemed to have a real bomb and was threatening to explode it. I waited outside along with my colleagues till 2.30 and then we went home.”
Mohammad Saifullah, Indian: “I was in the lobby when people started running out, I too ran out. I didn’t bother to turn back and see the woman... I was really scared like the rest of the staff. My colleagues say she was wearing an explosive belt and she threatened to blow herself up. I haven’t experienced anything like this before and neither did my colleagues. We keep hearing of bombings in other parts of the world but to experience it here was really scary. We were all scared.”
Banim, Nepalese: “I was looking into the accounts in the shop, when I heard people shouting and I turned up to see what was happening. People were shouting bomb... only then I realised there was somebody inside with a bomb. All of us in the coffee shop also ran out. We waited outside till 3.30pm, it’s the time our duty ends daily. We couldn’t go back in so we decided to go home. We got to know that the drama went on until late at night.”
