He wasn't a bad man, says Qateel Siddiqui's wife

A pall of gloom enveloped 27-year-old Qateel Siddiqui’s modest dwelling on Friday afternoon. The tears had dried and remorse had swiftly given way to silent anger as his pregnant wife quietly stared into space.

A pall of gloom enveloped 27-year-old Qateel Siddiqui’s modest dwelling on Friday afternoon. The tears had dried and remorse had swiftly given way to silent anger as his pregnant wife quietly stared into space.

HT Image

As she gently patted her two-year-old daughter, Fatima broke her silence. She had nothing left except memories of a seemingly uneventful November evening when her husband was taken away from her.

"We were going for my medical check-up when two men claiming to be policemen took him away," recalled Fatima. "He kept telling them he wasn't a bad man, that he wasn't a terrorist."

Siddiqui was the only role model for his younger brother, Shakeel, and two younger sisters.

In fact, he had promised his dying parents back home in Bihar that he would become a government servant one day.

"I spoke to someone in Pune last week and he told me things would be fine soon. Today when I asked him if the media reports were true he just hung up," said a distraught Shakeel.