Bollywood-style reunion in Dubai: Uzbek mum meets Indian son she left after birth

March 6, 2013

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Dubai, Mar 6: Dubai’s police described it as a plot similar to an Indian movie. The main characters are an Indian father, an Uzbek mother and their son but the setting was thousands of miles from India, taking place in Dubai and Kenya.

The ending also has a stark resemblance of that in a film but it was still not clear whether it is a happy or sad end. Perhaps the readers have to judge.

Starting from the end, an Uzbek woman who married an Indian businessman and travelled with him to Kenya in1993 was deprived of her son just three months after he was born. After a weary search saga, she reunited with him in Dubai this week with the help of Interpol and Dubai’s police but the adult son appeared not very impressed.

The story began when the Indian man travelled to Uzbekistan to pick a pretty wife in early 1990s. After a brief search, he found his target—a beautiful 17-year-old woman, who he quickly married and travelled with her to Kenya where he had business.

After they had their first son and named him Saeed, rifts erupted when she decided to add the boy to her passport. A few weeks later, the furious husband decided to get rid of her by telling her they were all going back to India.

At the airport, they boarded a flight but the man took his son and told his wife to wait in the aircraft as he forgot something at the airport. When he did not come back the pilot announced an imminent take off, she panicked, screamed and went into a hysterical fit, prompting the cabin crew to take her out of the plane.

After a while, she realised that she had been deceived by her husband and believed he took her son and travelled back to his home town of Mumbay.

Although she realised that she had lost her son, she did not give up and began a long but futile search journey. Yet she did not quit her endeavours and many years later, she decided to resort to Interpol, who located her son’s whereabouts in Dubai.

After frenzied contacts through Facebook and other social networks, she was told by a girl that she knows her son and that he studies at a university in Dubai. But she got her first shock when she contacted him and was told to leave him alone. He even threatened her against contacting his friends again.

The mother, now 37, decided then to travel to the UAE, where she stayed with a friend in Ras Al Khaimah. She then contacted the Human Rights Department in Dubai, which managed to reunite her with her son after extensive contacts.

It was like a fiction story similar to that in an Indian film,” said Colonel Mohammed Al Murr, the Department’s director. “We decided to help this woman because she looked a respected person and she would never stop crying. The first meeting with her son was difficult and extremely emotional. It was a story that moved everyone.”

The Arabic language daily Emirat Alyoum said the meeting was arranged by Lt Colonel Khaled Lootah, director of the woman and child protection department.

“It was a very dramatic meeting…when the mother went into the room and saw her son, she lost her balance and was about to faint. She then went into a weeping fit because was so happy, but her son appeared apathetic and said he was angry that she emerged in his life. She tried her best to explain that she is his biological mother but he still refused to accept that fact and looked as if he had an internal conflict,” Lootah said.

“The boy then said his father told him that his mother sold him for $6 million in Nairobi (Kenya) in return for shares in a nightclub. He said that his real mother is the woman who brought him up in India and looked after him when he was a child.”

Emirat Alyoum quoted Lootah as saying they arranged another meeting between the mother and the son and that they tried to convince the son to treat the woman as a real mother. “The boy then asked for time so he can absorb the situation. The second meeting ended in a very warm hugging by the mother of her son.”

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News Network
May 20,2024

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Following the tragic death of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and his entourage in a helicopter crash in northwestern Iran, the first vice president has taken charge as the interim president.

Iranian Constitution states that the first vice president takes over temporarily in the event of the death or major illness of the incumbent president for a period of 50 days.

Mohammad Mokhber, who served as President Raeisi’s first deputy since 2021, has taken over as the acting president for 50 days, in line with the constitutional requirement.

Holding a PhD in international law, Mokhber was born in the city of Dezful in the southern province of Khuzestan in 1955. He rose through the ranks to assume important social and political roles.

Mokhber, a vastly experienced executive manager who was chosen by Raeisi as his first vice president following the historic presidential elections in 2021, has impressed all and sundry with his work.

Raeisi won the mandate with a landslide election win in 2021, outshining all his key competitors, some of whom withdrew their applications and supported his bid.

Due to Mokhber’s years of experience in top managerial roles, especially as the president of the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order (EIKO), also known as Setad, he was an automatic choice as Raeisi’s executive deputy.

Mokhber served as the head of Setad for nearly 14 years between 2007 and 2021. During this long period, his passion for social welfare, hard work and commitment to the revolutionary cause was something that made him a popular figure.

Among his works in Setad included the establishment of the Barakat Foundation, the Ehsan Foundation, and the production of the first Iranian COVID-19 vaccine, known as CONIRAN BAREKAT.

Before Setad, he served as the chairman of the board at Sina Bank, as well as the governor of southern Iran’s Khuzestan province. In both roles, he excelled.

Due to his work with Setad, he was placed on a sanctions list by the European Union in July 2010 and was taken off the list two years later.

Since 2021, he has been tirelessly working to implement social welfare schemes of the Raeisi government, working closely with people like the president himself.

Mokhber is likely to be one of the candidates when the new elections are held after 50 days.

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News Network
May 20,2024

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State media in Iran have confirmed the death of President Ebrahim Raisi and companions after the helicopter he was travelling in crashed in poor weather in an eastern province.

With Raisi were Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, East Azarbaijan Gov. Malek Rahmati, East Azarbaijan Imam of Friday Prayer Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, and a few other leaders and bodyguards. 

The reports came after rescuers from the Iranian Red Crescent said they had found the wreckage of the helicopter, which was also carrying the country’s foreign minister and other officials, and that there was “no sign of life”.

Rescue teams fought through dense fog, blizzards and mountainous terrain to reach the wreckage in East Azerbaijan province early on Monday, but state television gave no immediate cause for the crash. 

“President Raisi’s helicopter was completely burned in the crash … unfortunately, all passengers are feared dead,” the Reuters news agency reported, citing an unnamed Iranian official.

Raisi, 63, was elected president on his second attempt in 2021, and since taking office, has overseen a tightening of morality laws, a bloody crackdown on antigovernment protests triggered by the death in custody of 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini, and taken a tougher approach to nuclear talks with world powers.

Last month, he ordered an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel, following an alleged Israeli strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus which killed 13 people including a top commander and his deputy.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate power in Iran, had earlier sought to reassure Iranians, some of whom turned out to pray for Raisi’s wellbeing, saying there would be no disruption to state affairs.

‘We found it’

Raisi was travelling home to Tehran when state television said his helicopter made a “hard landing” near Jolfa, a city on the border with Azerbaijan, some 600km (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital. Later, state media put the crash location farther east near the village of Uzi, but details remained contradictory.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian was also on the flight, as well as the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

Earlier on Monday, Turkish authorities released what they described as drone footage showing what appeared to be a fire in the wilderness that they “suspected to be [the] wreckage of [a] helicopter”. The coordinates listed in the footage put the fire some 20km (12 miles) south of the Azerbaijan-Iranian border on the side of a steep mountain.

Footage released by the IRNA showed what the agency described as the crash site, across a steep valley in a green mountain range. Soldiers speaking in the local Azeri language said: “There it is, we found it.”

Shortly after, state TV in an on-screen scrolling text, said: “There is no sign of life from people on board.” It did not elaborate, but the semiofficial Tasnim news agency showed rescuers using a small drone to fly over the site, with them speaking among themselves saying the same thing. The footage showed the tail of the helicopter and burnt debris all around it.

Under the Iranian Constitution, if a president is confirmed dead, Iran’s vice first president takes over and a new presidential election would be called within 50 days.

First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber already had begun receiving calls from officials and foreign governments in Raisi’s absence, state media reported.

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News Network
May 19,2024

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A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” on May 19, Iranian state media reported, without immediately elaborating.

Mr. Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said the incident happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Traveling with Raisi were Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province and other officials, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. One local government official used the word “crash” to describe the incident, but he acknowledged to an Iranian newspaper that he had yet to reach the site himself.

Neither IRNA nor state TV offered any information on Mr. Raisi’s condition.

Rescuers were attempting to reach the site, state TV said, but had been hampered by poor weather conditions. There had been heavy rain and fog reported with some wind. IRNA called the area a “forest.”

Mr. Raisi had been in Azerbaijan early Sunday to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. The dam is the third one that the two nations built on the Aras River. The visit came despite chilly relations between the two nations, including over a gun attack on Azerbaijan’s Embassy in Tehran in 2023, and Azerbaijan’s diplomatic relations with Israel, which Iran’s Shiite theocracy views as its main enemy in the region.

Iran flies a variety of helicopters in the country, but international sanctions make it difficult to obtain parts for them. Its military air fleet also largely dates back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Mr. Raisi, 63, is a revolutionary who formerly led the country’s judiciary. He is viewed as a protégé of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some analysts have suggested he could replace the 85-year-old leader after his death or resignation from the role.

Mr. Raisi won Iran’s 2021 presidential election, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. Raisi is sanctioned by the U.S. in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.

Under Mr. Raisi, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launched a massive drone-and-missile attack on Israel amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It also has continued arming proxy groups in the Mideast, like Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

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