‘Bomber’ Qureshi’s mother hasn’t seen him since 2006

Zubeida Qureshi emerged from her flat in Mira Road to face the glare of flashbulbs — and to talk about her son, who is now being seen as India’s Osama bin Laden. Presley Thomas & Stavan Desai report.

Her son is accused in a series of bombings that have killed more than 140 people this year, including last week’s blasts in Delhi; he is the country’s most wanted man.

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It can’t be easy being the mother of Abdus Subhan Qureshi, the alleged computer-savvy bomb-maker who has put his signature on every major terror attack in India since the train blasts in Mumbai in 2006. But 60-year-old Zubeida Qureshi emerged on Wednesday from her one-bedroom flat in Mira Road to face the glare of flashbulbs — and to talk about her son, who is now being seen as India’s Osama bin Laden.

“I want him to come back and stand trial,” she said, addressing a packed press conference in Mumbai. “He should clarify the allegations of terror levelled against him.”

Her voice trembled a little when she spoke, and she only twice removed her black hijab. “If he is found guilty, I would appeal that he be hanged in front of me. So that nobody else dares do such an act again,” she said, her eyes glistening.

She said Qureshi — convent-educated and now 36 years old — had moved out of his parents’ home to a flat in Mira Road seven years ago, and that she had not seen him since he abandoned that flat — and his wife and three children — in July 2006. Zubeida, along with her husband Usman (65), a former cattle seller, now lives in the Mira Road flat with Qureshi’s wife and children.