Launching a diatribe against the media for hyping his son, Abdul Wassey’s case, who was injured in the Mecca Masjid blast of 2007 as well as the Dilsukhnagar blast, Mirza Shahid Mughal refuted the allegations that his son was involved in the terror attack and deemed his presence at both blast sites as purely coincidental.
He heaved a sigh of relief after being apprised of the fact that his son was not a suspect for now, as stated by police commissioner Anurag Sharma.
Speaking to Express at Yashoda hospital on Saturday, Mirza, who was vexed with the ‘attention’ being showered on him and his family by the media, said his son had been working at Dilsukhnagar since the past three years. “He used to work at a footwear store, but he left the work as he said the money was insufficient. He then began working for someone else,” he explained, adding that Wassey had told him that he had stepped out only to drink tea.
“Is drinking tea also a crime? Every single worker drinks tea everyday. How can media just say rubbish like he came all the way from home at Kalapathar to drink tea at Dilsukhnagar?” he questioned furisouly.
The grief stricken man showed x-rays of his sons body, which showed remnants of shrapnel and other foreign objects still stuck in Wassey’s legs, feet and spine.
“Here we are worried that he may not be able to work again while people only seem to be bothered about asking us of his involvement. My son never fully recovered after the 2007 blast,” Mirza lamented.
Accusing TV reporters of harassing him and his family, he said, “They even arrived at my house and began firing questions at my wife. What will she know? We already have so many problems.”
Mirza has three sons and four daughters. “Wassey used to earn around `4500 or more and give most of it to us to pay the house rent. He would keep maybe `1500 for himself,” Mirza said.
He added that the police had not harassed him or his family in anyway. “What the police asked my son and what he told them I don’t know. But police arrived at my house Friday night and asked us for some information, which we gave. They were not rude at all,” he said.
Who is Abdul Wassey?
Abdul Wassey (22), a resident of Kalapathar in the Old City studied in Standard Primary High School till seventh standard. Oldest of the three sons, Abdul dropped out of studies as he was uninterested in it. He then began working at a shoe store near Madina cirle in the Old City.
In 2007, he was pursuing diploma in electronics at a Setwin Institute. That was when he was injured in the Masjid blast. Three months later, he recovered and completed his diploma. He managed to secure a job but was forced to quit as his injuries disallowed him to work properly. Wassey then began working at Dilsukhnagar.