Mastung attack: Journey to save child’s life cut horribly short

Victim was going to collect money for his son’s bone marrow transplant.

ABBOTABAD:

Yusuf Ali was going to collect money for his son’s bone marrow transplant when he was shot dead.

Ali, 46, was among the 26 victims of the attack on a passenger bus in Mastung that was carrying mostly Shia pilgrims to Iran. He was not one of the pilgrims, but employed in an Iranian company where his colleagues had promised to give him financial assistance for his son’s surgery.

Ali’s youngest son, seven-year-old Hassan, has been a Thalassemia patient for two years and doctors had recently suggested a bone marrow transplant for the boy costing Rs3 million.

“Yusuf Ali was a mechanic who was working in a Dubai- based company in Iran for the past three years,” said one of his relatives Muhammad Muneer.

The victim was laid to rest in his ancestral graveyard in a village near Mansehra on Thursday. Ali’s immediate family was not available for comment because they had not returned to Abbottabad after the burial.

“Ali was happy when he left for Tehran and told his wife that he would return soon after arranging the money, promising that their child would soon lead a normal life,” his neighbour Riaz Ahmed told The Express Tribune.



Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2011.