September 20, 2008	Saturday	Ramazan 19, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Sept 19: Sister of Dr Aafia Siddiqui has urged the government to speed up efforts to get the neuroscientist repatriated from the United States and to trace her two missing children.

“I don’t think she will get justice in the US. The government has to step up efforts to save her life,” Dr Fauzia Siddqui said at a press conference at the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Press Club.

“Please consider my sister innocent and a victim of (the war on) terror and not a terrorist.”

She said she “firmly believed” that the other two children of Dr Aafia — nine-year-old daughter Marium and six-year-old son Sulema – were also in Afghanistan and people who helped to trace Mohammad Ahmed would also support her efforts to locate the missing children.

“Some government functionaries have assured me that the children would be recovered.”

About the condition of her ‘nephew’ Mohammad, she said he had been traumatised and suffered ‘dreadful nightmares’.

The child was in such a fragile mental condition that (sometimes) he did not even remember his own name, she said. “What he went through would have turned even a normal grown-up individual into a terrified broken soul,” Dr Fauzia Siddqui said.

Earlier, she was reported to have been asked by agencies not to speak to the media about Dr Aafia and her children.

Dr Fauzia said the boy needed proper treatment and love and affection to prevent permanent mental damage.

She said the children had been kept separately from Dr Aafia after her abduction because Ahmad never met his brother and sister. “We hope they will also be found in Afghanistan”, she said.

Later, Dr Fauzia and Mohammad travelled to Karachi where they were received by members of the family.