Dubai: Mukhtar Khuda Baksh, the father of the four-year-old rape-murder victim Mousa, sat with photographs of his son surrounded by male members of his family in the living room of their villa in Al Qusais.
"My darling son Mousa," he said, holding one of the photographs in his hand with tears streaming down his face. Unable to control his emotions, his family members held his hands to comfort him. His other two children Mustafa, 5, and Mariam, 3, sat close to their father.
Hard to cope
"Justice has prevailed. The killer of my son has been handed a death sentence today and my family was present in the court room waiting to hear the judge speak," said Baksh, a Pakistani.
Mousa's mother looked calm, but according to her husband has been finding it hard to cope with the loss of her son.
"I have heard her cry at night and [she] calls out her son's name. I try to calm her down by telling her that Allah is merciful and will surely bless us with another son and that we will name him Mousa."
Baksh said that after the tragic manner in which Mousa died, his wife becomes paranoid if she spots her two other children venturing out of the villa gates.
"She is so afraid for them and keeps a hawk-eye on them every single minute. If she does not find Mariam or Mustafa around, panic sets in and she screams their names aloud.
Mustafa, my elder son, misses his younger brother a lot and keeps saying "Mousa has gone to Allah," and if you ask Mariam she just points her little finger skywards."
Mukhtar then lost consciousness and fell to the ground, hurting his head. Family members gathered around him. One splashed water on his face to get him back to consciousness.
After a couple of minutes Mukhtar said: "Mousa was so happy on the day of Eid and looked cute in his new clothes. The last interaction that I had with him was just ten minutes before his body was being taken in the ambulance from the mosque".
"He had kissed me and wished me ‘Eid Mubarak' and I had kissed him back and wished him ‘Eid Mubarak'. How can I forget those moments. I left him playing with his cousins and headed towards the mosque for prayers and as I was doing wudhu [ablution] I heard some men shouting that a child has been injured and were seen running towards the gates of the mosque where an ambulance was waiting," he recalled.
