Ripples of grief in Swabi, DI Khan

Some bid farewell to loved ones, others brave agonising wait.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN:

Sobia’s family was waiting for her, and her daughter, to arrive in Dera Ismail Khan. Now, they are waiting for their bodies.

“She called her mother at 4pm on Friday, informing her that she was coming to Islamabad through Bhoja Air and will contact us from there. That never happened,” Sibghatullah, Sobia’s uncle, told The Express Tribune.

The grief-struck man sat outside Sobia’s house with her father Riffatullah, a teacher at a government primary school in Wakian Wala area of DI Khan city. The men were receiving people who were coming to condole for their loss. Sobia’s mother, her two sisters and a brother are in Islamabad to collect the bodies of Sobia and Tayyaba.

Sobia, 25, had married her cousin Abidur Rehman in 2008 in Karachi. They lived in Islamabad with their 18-month-old daughter Tayyaba. Abid, a computer engineer, works for a cellular company in the federal capital. Sobia herself had a postgraduate degree in Computer Sciences from DI Khan’s Gomal University. Riffatullah requested Abid and his father to allow them to bury his daughter and granddaughter in DI Khan. “I wanted to be able to visit their graves easily,” he explained. “God bless them..  Abid and his father agreed to it,” Sibghatullah said.

The bodies will be buried in Kutchery Graveyard in DI Khan on Sunday at 8am.

Swabi grieves

Meanwhile, hundreds of Swabi residents gathered on Saturday to say the final goodbye to a resident who died in Friday’s Bhoja Air plane crash.

Rakhshanda, who hailed from Inayatkhel area of Swabi, was on her way to Islamabad from Karachi where she and her husband Izhar Ahmed had gone to meet family.

Rakhshanda’s brother Muhammad Yousaf identified her body at Islamabad’s Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences and brought it to Swabi. Her husband Izhar, who works in Dubai, cancelled his flight to UAE and immediately came to Islamabad after hearing the news of the plane crash.

Family members told The Express Tribune that Rakhshanda and Izhar had married five years ago. Izhar was to leave for Dubai from Karachi the same day his wife was travelling to Islamabad. He asked his father and brother to receive Rakhshanda at Islamabad. The men were waiting at the airport when they heard the news of the crash. They immediately called Yousaf to Islamabad.

The funeral prayers were said at the main cricket ground in Swabi city at 2pm.

(With additional reporting by our correspondent in Swabi)

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22^nd, 2012.