KARACHI: There is nothing left for Saleem Ahmed to do other than wait for information about his nephew and his mother who have been untraceable since the Mina stampede, while his two other relatives have lately been found dead at a hospital in Saudi Arabia.

Sitting in the porch of his home in North Nazimabad, Saleem, the eldest in the family, on Tuesday spoke about the ordeal the family is trying to get through. From where he sat, some people could be heard reciting the Quran in an otherwise quiet home.

Five of Saleem’s relatives had left for Jeddah late September to perform Haj. They included Prof Iftikhar Ahmed, 72, head of the geology department at Urdu Science College, his wife Raana Iftikhar, 64, his son Zubair Ahmed, 33, manager at Engro Foods, Prof Talmeez Ahmed, 66, former principal of Jinnah college, and his wife Prof Shams Jahan, 64, principal of Abdullah Government College.

However, Prof Jahan is the only one among them to make it back home. “She is on sedatives and is under immense trauma. She lost her husband and her brother, while her brother’s family [Raana Iftikhar and Zubair Ahmed] are being searched in Jeddah,” says Saleem.

Speaking about the tragedy in a matter-of-fact manner, he says he won’t call them missing. “Missing is a subjective word in this context. They are either injured or dead. We are doing everything in our capacity to locate them, and hopefully we will [find them]. But what adds insult to the injury is the response of our authorities.”

The government should have pressed the Saudi authorities to ascertain the exact number of Pakistanis dead, he says.

Coming to how it all happened, Saleem elaborates that the family lost each other near Maktab 85. “They were together in the beginning. Prof Iftikhar and Shams Jahan were in the wheelchairs and Prof Talmeez and others were walking before them. At one point, the wheelchair of Ms Jahan got stuck and she stopped to check the wheel. In the meantime, others walked ahead and as a result they lost each other,” he says while narrating what Ms Jahan, who received minor injuries and was the first one to reach her hotel, informed the family after returning to Karachi.

The family received information about Ms Jahan through the camp, Saleem says. The helpline numbers, he says, were “totally useless as they had no information with them. One of the helpline numbers provided to us was picked by an Arabic-speaking person who didn’t understand English or Urdu. Since I know a bit of Arabic, I inquired about the injured or dead but was only able to get a response that there is no information available at the moment.”

Just after the family managed to trace Ms Jahan, another search began to find the others. “Since calling on the helpline numbers was useless, I located relatives in Jeddah and they looked in hospitals and mortuaries around Muzdalifa, Mina and Jeddah, even smaller clinics were checked,” he adds. Eventually, the bodies of Prof Iftikhar and Prof Talmeez were found at one of the hospitals through the efforts of a group leader who recognised both of them through their photographs. “There were bruises on their faces but apart from that no other marks were visible on their bodies. Shams Jahan was asked to allow the right to bury both the bodies, which she did, and so our relatives buried Prof Iftikhar and Prof Talmeez near a mosque in Mina,” he says.

About the process of identification, Saleem says: “The process is slow for sure but the Saudi government cooperated a lot.” Sequential numbers are given to all the bodies that were found in a pile after the stampede, he explains, adding that “a list of the injured along with their photographs is available at every hospital. As laymen, our relatives had no problem in reaching the mortuaries and identifying the dead.”

As the number of dead Pakistanis after the Mina stampede continues to be debated in the mainstream media, Saleem says the Pakistani authorities should be putting more pressure on the Saudi government in clearly identifying the number of Pakistanis dead in the stampede. “The number given by our authorities — on the missing and the dead — don’t add up to the actual figure they gave in the beginning that stood at 350. I don’t doubt the figure given by The Guardian newspaper, but my opinion doesn’t matter. The authorities should be pushing for answers,” he insists.

It will be seven days since the family has got the news about the dead and those who are yet to be found. What upsets Saleem and his family is the attitude of the authorities. “I read a very careless statement by one minister who said people went missing during stampedes, so they’d be back soon. They could be dead and God knows where. And to add insult to injury, a compensation of Rs500,000 and a Umrah package for two people from each martyrs’ family were also announced,” he says while expressing his annoyance. “We are not looking to sell our martyrs here,” he says, adding that the same compensation money could have been used to sponsor one person from a family to look for their relatives in Mina.

“People are not held accountable. And that’s why we are still waiting to know where Zubair and his mother are at the moment,” he says.

Published in Dawn September 30th, 2015

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