Talat Hamdani (centre) and New York City officials at an event to commemorate naming of Salman Hamdani Way. PHOTO: FILE
Talat Hamdani is tired, but she still vows to fight on. “Injustice is injustice,” she says in a telephone interview. She stops to catch her breath as she tries not to cry. “The City of New York has disclaimed my son.”
After a decade-long struggle, her son, a police cadet and a 9/11 hero, Mohammad Salman Hamdani was finally honoured as a street was named after him earlier this week in Bayside, Queens. Mrs Hamdani calls the move “a step in the right direction”. Salman was a New York Police Department (NYPD) cadet and emergency medical technician who died while helping victims after the World Trade Centre towers were hit.
“He needs to be officially recognised by the NYPD and by the administration as a cadet who sacrificed his life,” she tells The Express Tribune.
Until March 2002, when his body parts were found at Ground Zero, Salman was mistaken to be a terrorist. “If I hadn’t fought to clear his name, his sacrifice would have been in vain,” his mother says.
After the attacks, NYPD announced that their fallen fellow officers would be honoured as streets would be named after them. But Mrs Hamdani had to apply for the street naming on her own. “I approached the NY Community Board 11, Bayside, last February and told them what had happened.”
Earlier, she wrote to the then-NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg as well as NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly, but she did not receive a positive response. The Community Board, however, unanimously approved her application in two weeks. “This wasn’t what I thought my country was about! It’s clearly a mistake,” said Jerry Iannece, chairman of the Community Board at the time. “I was proud to be part of the community that stood up for Salman and voted for the street naming.”
On whether this was an act of discrimination, he said, “I would not go there, but I would say that the City and NYPD need to get their act together and honour Salman.”
The next day of the vote, Iannece penned a letter to their local District Councilman, whom he said also moved things “at light’s speed”.
However, it still took former mayor Bloomberg more than a year to sign off. “He signed off naming a street after a Hurricane Sandy victim in less than six months. Why did this take so long?” Mrs Hamdani asked.“This is bigotry of the highest order.” She feels Bloomberg approved the street naming a few days before his term ended, so that current mayor de Blasio could not take credit for it.
In 2009, she received word from the National 9/11 Memorial saying Salman’s name will be included but not with those of first responders and NYPD officials. His name was placed on a panel that includes names of those who had nothing to do with the WTC.
“This is prejudice,” she maintains. The NYPD was contacted several times but their public information department did not give a timeframe for a response.
Mrs Hamdani wants Mayor de Blasio to acknowledge Salman as an active NYPD cadet and have his name placed under the first responders before this year’s 9/11 anniversary. She has written to the mayor twice and has received no response.
“Naming the street is the beginning of fixing an injustice. This is a turning point in the relationship of Americans and Muslims. This way they can prove that Muslims are an integral part of America’s social fabric,” she concludes. “They need to prove liberty and justice for all. Right now, it is justice for a few.” Recognising Salman Hamdani and his sacrifice can mark the beginning of American Muslims shedding the cross of 9/11. And the only thing the mayor needs to do is sign a piece of paper.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 3rd, 2014.
COMMENTS (4)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
Well no surprises there, it's racism at the highest level, if that was a white American or white Jewish American then they would be parading in the streets with all the trimmings to highlight the sacrifices made by them to defend the motherland against the Muslim terrorists. I hasten to add thaat the Muslim governments in all the world are corrupt and funded and run by the American /western backing to keep their oil tankers going to America whilst the masses are subjected to violence and suppression. There is an offense of aiding and abetting murder and war crimes and these western powers are as guilty of that as the corrupt Muslim rulers.
"They thought that he was a terrorist." Then how did he pass the extensive background check performed by NYPD?
This is racial and religious bias straight up! It must be a kick in the groin to other minorities serving; Buddhist, Sheihks, etc.
He was an EMT, saved lives then. I am sure they had this in his background package.
All people die alone. In this case he was abandoned by the city he served.
Very Sad.
There is no such thing as "true justice" in this world. The only justice is the one which you fight for. As proved by his mother.
Before 9/11 the west died waiting for excuses to bash Muslims. They finally got the breakthrough they needed with the 9/11 incident.
And this can & will happen to any religion which has very high and strict standards of morality and social integrity with an immense global following.
The world hates Islam but the excuses they currently use are very authentic.
Most Islamic states are worst examples of Islamic ideology. Muslims have lost their practical will to follow Islam.
The hardship that Talat Hamdani has been facing to get the legitimate acknowledgement for the sacrifice of her son proves how biased the government in USA is. People like Guiliani, New York Mayor at the time of 9/11, were notorious for their anti-muslim sentiments. But it wasn't expected from Michael Bloomberg whose Bloomberg systems are used by hundreds of Pakistani treasurers. Better late than never.