Missing: Man wants police’s help in finding son
Father receives little to no assistance in tracking down son.
ISLAMABAD:
Rasheed Ahmed’s 25-year-old mentally disabled son has been missing for about a month and the police are not helping. Mazhar Hussain, the son, went missing from outside the office of a nazim in Lahore.
Ahmed, a resident of Rawalpindi, approached the Anarkali Police Station in Lahore to lodge an FIR. But since the Station House Officer, or a higher ranking officer, was not present at the time, a police official sitting there instead “wrote an entry in the register”, Ahmed said. This happened on November 17, but the Anarkali police are yet to register an FIR, despite his repeated requests.
Hussain suffers from microcephaly, a genetic condition where the head’s circumference is smaller than average. The condition can manifest either at birth or during a child’s progressive years.
While Hussain’s condition was genetic, the fact that his mother left when he was four years old did not help matters. “Children in the neighbourhood would call him ‘mad’, throwing stones and teasing him when he screamed at them,” he stated adding that Hussain then started screaming at home and would sometimes go out of control.
The two were in Lahore for Hussain’s treatment. Ahmed believed the nazim could get his son admitted to a hospital that specialises in mental disabilities. He said he was turned away from the hospital because he did not have a valid ‘reference’.
Anarkali Police Station Inspector Ahmed Raza said Ahmed never visited the police station himself but kept sending applications through the post instead. “I have asked him several times to meet me to obtain the whole story, but he never did that. How can we help him when we have no accurate information,” Raza said.
He added that Ahmed is, on the one hand, alleging his son is missing and on the other, accusing his ex-wife, who has now remarried, and her family for kidnapping him.
Ahmed, on the other, says he cannot afford to go to Lahore over and over again to try and get an FIR registered, which is why he sends in letters instead.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 15th, 2011.
Rasheed Ahmed’s 25-year-old mentally disabled son has been missing for about a month and the police are not helping. Mazhar Hussain, the son, went missing from outside the office of a nazim in Lahore.
Ahmed, a resident of Rawalpindi, approached the Anarkali Police Station in Lahore to lodge an FIR. But since the Station House Officer, or a higher ranking officer, was not present at the time, a police official sitting there instead “wrote an entry in the register”, Ahmed said. This happened on November 17, but the Anarkali police are yet to register an FIR, despite his repeated requests.
Hussain suffers from microcephaly, a genetic condition where the head’s circumference is smaller than average. The condition can manifest either at birth or during a child’s progressive years.
While Hussain’s condition was genetic, the fact that his mother left when he was four years old did not help matters. “Children in the neighbourhood would call him ‘mad’, throwing stones and teasing him when he screamed at them,” he stated adding that Hussain then started screaming at home and would sometimes go out of control.
The two were in Lahore for Hussain’s treatment. Ahmed believed the nazim could get his son admitted to a hospital that specialises in mental disabilities. He said he was turned away from the hospital because he did not have a valid ‘reference’.
Anarkali Police Station Inspector Ahmed Raza said Ahmed never visited the police station himself but kept sending applications through the post instead. “I have asked him several times to meet me to obtain the whole story, but he never did that. How can we help him when we have no accurate information,” Raza said.
He added that Ahmed is, on the one hand, alleging his son is missing and on the other, accusing his ex-wife, who has now remarried, and her family for kidnapping him.
Ahmed, on the other, says he cannot afford to go to Lahore over and over again to try and get an FIR registered, which is why he sends in letters instead.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 15th, 2011.