" Return of the Memons- A Pyrrhic Victory" continues...

When he called me up and expressed his apprehension, I asked him to check out of Al-Wasl and move to a different hotel. He checked into Hotel Rex, Deira on August 19.

He was now scouring Dubai frantically, checking out mosques, hospitals, shopping areas etc. only to draw a blank. Meanwhile, with every passing day, our bosses in Delhi were getting impatient. Suresh was continuously reporting that he was being followed and he kept changing his hotels.

But there was one smart thing that he did every evening. Knowing that the Memons were fond of food from Delhi Darbar, a restaurant serving traditional Mughlai food at Al Khamara in Dubai, he would park himself there every evening. His patience and presence of mind were to pay dividends. On August 21, he saw two of his cousins Suleman and Essa come to Delhi Darbar to pick take-away – called ‘parcel’ in Bombay’s colloquial lingo—for the rest of the family.

When he met them, his cousins were ecstatic. Overwhelmed with emotion, they clung to him and wept. They took him where the remaining members of the Memon family were in hiding. Suresh came to know that Yaqub’s wife Rahin had delivered a girl child on July 30. The newborn had been named Zubeida, which in Urdu means ‘Essence’.

The entire family had been through a state of untold trauma, fear and panic. First, the realisation that Yaqub was in serious trouble, then the collective decision to surreptitiously slip out of Karachi, followed by Rahin’s hospitalisation in Dubai and Zubeida’s arrival. They had no idea what the future held for them; yet they were happy to be out of Pakistan.

Suresh explained to his distressed family members that he had been sent by Yaqub to take them back to India. He kept awake through the night of their re-union trying to convince and persuade them to accompany him back home. However, there was a small but serious problem. Rahin’s passport had
been deposited by the Memons at the Pakistani Consulate in Dubai for the inclusion of her baby’s name.

To be continued...