If there was one woman who swung the pendulum of public opinion in Indian doctor Haneef Mohammad's favour through the 27 days he spent in detention at a Brisbane jail, it was his 24-year-old wife, Firdous Arshiya. The young wife and mother of a newborn grew from a girl to a woman overnight as she faced the intrusive, ever questioning media, probing for any sign of weakness in a family that was under the unrelenting scanner for links with terror groups.
In fact, the death of Kafeel Ahmad from burns on August 2, who rammed a flaming jeep into Glasgow airport on June 30 and the release from detention of Kafeel's second cousin and Firdous' husband Haneef in Australia on July 29, leaves just one person from India's IT capital Bangalore implicated in the failed bombings of Glasgow and London airports — Kafeel's younger brother Sabeel Ahmad.
As the focus shifts to the young doctor to whom the freed cousin, Haneef, had lent his unused sim card and unwittingly set off an unfortunate chain of events, it is all too clear that Sabeel lacks the array of weapons that worked in Haneef's favour.
Strong support
First, a legal team headed by the plain-speaking, rough-edged Peter Russo who has had no hesitation in calling a spade a shovel in his successful battle to win Haneef's release from a detention facility in Brisbane. He is also set to take on Australia's immigration authorities when the cancellation of Haneef's visa — and that of Firdous' and mother Qurathulain's — comes up for a hearing.
Second, support from relatives such as Imran Siddiqui whose shrewd negotiating skills reportedly helped sell Haneef's story to a major international media and publishing house. Siddiqui, who is Firdous's first cousin, also threw a protective ring around Haneef shielding him from an intrusive press after he returned to his hometown Bangalore.
The interview to Australia's Channel 9, many believe was arranged by Russo and Siddiqui as a means of offsetting the huge legal costs incurred and to compensate for the time that Haneef will take to get back on his feet again. Both Russo and Siddiqui refuse to confirm or deny the story. But Haneef's biggest asset while in detention has been his wife, the plain-speaking Firdous, who after an initial hesitation took the plunge and overnight, became the appealing face of the campaign to free Haneef.
Asked if he knew of Firdous' role, Haneef said he had no idea at all of the role she had played when he was in jail. In fact, he said in a telling slip of the tongue, that it was "unremarkable". Give him the benefit of the doubt said many in the press conference who remarked on the way Firdous had faded from public view after Haneef's homecoming. He must have meant 'remarkable' said one onlooker. Firdous, closeted in her father's home on the day after her husband's arrest, was reluctant to come out and interact with the media choking the tiny street in this quiet, leafy suburb of Bangalore.
As relatives and friends were allowed through the high iron gates to participate in the Quran Khawani, the mood was sombre, quiet, even a little defeatist.
La illaha illa anta subhanaka inni kuntu mina zaalimeen (there is no God but thou, thou are flawless, I have become indeed one of the trespassers) intoned the gathering.
That night, the pictures of Haneef's fraught mother, Qurathulain, her grey hair dishevelled, close to a collapse was being comforted by her daughter-in-law who like her daughter Sowmaya was also a new mother, were flashed on every television screen.
The images moved the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh into making his famous 'I have lost sleep over the plight of this mother' remark over this national incident.
Instead of the male members of this traditional Muslim family it was Firdous, recovering from a C-section delivery and wincing more than once as she moved, who interacted with India's Foreign Minister for the State, E. Ahmad who was dispatched by Delhi to help the family. It was she who told him with enormous conviction. "My husband is innocent."
Her manner always quietly confident, but she was adamant. "What first drew me to Haneef was his flawless character. He is incapable of harming anyone. I know my husband. I will fight until the end for his freedom. Haneef must get justice."
She admits the arrest was a huge shock. But she betrayed no nerves when she told Ahmad that the Indian government must step up and help free one of its citizens: "I told him that the government must help free my husband because the charges are so wrong. I have never ever been a leader nor have I ever been a spokesperson for anything, but I think it is circumstances that changed me. I knew I had to speak up for my husband. If I did not, no one would.
"The strength, I think, came from Allah, in whom I repose my complete trust and I know that my husband is innocent. It is the truth that has filled me with courage to take up the fight," she said. From a traditionally male-dominated Muslim family she says, she was not stopped from speaking freely. "My entire family has supported me. There have been no impediments or taunts for speaking up," she said.
In fact her father says he is very proud of the way she has handled matters, shedding her shyness while holding her own. "She was nervous," Ashfaq said. "She has never done this before, but she is slowly becoming less shy and talking very well, even to ministers."
It was after the meeting that the Indian embassy and the ambassador whom Haneef thanked over and over after he was freed, stepped in and gained consular access, while New Delhi itself called in the Australian ambassador and expressed their displeasure.
That finally New Delhi was doing the right thing for one of its own. That Firdous played a role in keeping the story alive as interest flagged during Haneef's detention cannot be denied.
Reasonably well to do, Firdous' father Ashfaq Ahmad ran several businesses including a lucrative contract to manage the parking at Bangalore airport.
The Mysore-based family had seen Ashfaq move to Bangalore several years ago, educating his sons and daughters in the city's best schools. Like her four sisters, she initially studied in Bangalore's Baldwin Girls High school run by Methodists. Firdous, 24, chose to be an engineer.
On the day of the homecoming, Firdous, dressed in cheerful red and unable to stop beaming, had to be persuaded to stay home. Although she has since returned to the confines of her home after the reunion, re-embracing the cultural mores of traditional Muslim homes, she left a mark.
As her doting father Ashfaq said. "I think she should not have been an engineer, I think she should have been a lawyer."
Failed questioning
Dr Haneef Mohammad was interrogated on July 3 by Detective Sergeant Adam Simms attached to the Joint Counter Terrorism Team and Federal Agent Neil Thomson for his alleged role in the UK terror plot.
Excerpts from Haneef Mohammad's interrogation:
Simms: Do you know Dr Sabeel?
Haneef: He is a distant cousin of mine from my maternal side.
Simms: Did you believe that Sabeel was involved in the attack?
Haneef: No, I didn't believe that.
Simms: When was the last time you spoke to him?
Haneef: On chat. He had congratulated me on having a daughter.
Simms: What is jihad?
Haneef: Jihad to my understanding is a struggle. That is the basic sort of understanding I have. Nothing else. It is often misquoted and misunderstood. I learnt this from religious scriptures.
Simms asks Haneef whether he wanted to say anything more.
Haneef: I am clear from any of the things. I have not done any of the crimes. Just want to let you know. And I do not want to spoil my name and profession. I have been a professional until now and I haven't been involved in any extra activities, the sort you have been discussing earlier. And I just want to live like a professional in the medical profession.
Simms: How did the situation in the UK make you feel?
Haneef: Well, every drop is human blood and I feel for every human being.
On his second cousin, Sabeel Ahmad to whom a year earlier Haneef had given his sim card:
Haneef told the AFP that he repeatedly tried to telephone Tony Webster, a police officer in Britain, to explain the sim card issue, but that the calls went unanswered.
The one-way ticket that raised police suspicions:
Haneef said his father-in-law paid for the ticket: "Because I didn't have money. I asked him to book a ticket for me now".
Brothers separated by terror and death
Kafeel Ahmad, 27
The dead bomber on the failed suicide mission went to the UK in 2002 for his Master's in engineering at Belfast. In 2005, he returned to Bangalore to take up a job, but soon left for the UK for a PhD in aerodynamics and aeronautical engineering at Cambridge. He lived in Birmingham where he met Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdullah through his younger brother Sabeel.
Before he left Bangalore on May 5, 2007 for UK, he told his mother that he was going on a "secret assignment" to the North Pole to study global warming.
Kafeel, who studied in the Indian Embassy school in Saudi Arabia, recently visited China and Singapore. Kafeel preferred to follow the Tableeghi-e-Jamaat
Sabeel Ahmad, 26
Nothing suspicious has been found on Sabeel so far. He studied with Haneef in B.R. Ambedkar Medical College, Bangalore and worked with him in the Halton Hospital in Cheshire, England in 2005. Sabeel gave his mobile phone to Bilal, the one that Haneef had given him before leaving for Australia. It was he who introduced Kafeel to another doctor Mohammad Asha and wife Marwa Asha (both of Palestinian origin), both of whom have also been detained.
Mohammad Haneef, 27
A cousin of Kafeel, Haneef was a year senior to Sabeel at B.R. Ambedkar Medical College in 2003. He had lent his mobile phone to Sabeel before leaving UK for Australia in October 2006. Sabeel gave it to Bilal who used the mobile phone to make several suspicious calls to those with alleged links to terror groups.
