Dutiful son calls mother before falling victim

BY V L Srinivasan

Published on August 27, 2007

HYDERABAD: Minutes before he fell victim to last night’s terror attack at the Gokul Chat, 21-year-old Mohammad Akramullah Khan called up his mother Jilani Begum to know if she wanted something from the eatery for three of his five sisters and for her.

Akram was accompanying his other two sisters – Yasmin Fatima and Afreen Fatima – for buying books from the book stalls at Koti. While the girls were waiting in the autorickshaw, Akram was inside the shop only to die.

Jilani Begum, however, said that there was no need to bring anything but wanted him and her two daughters to return home early. While Yasmin and Afreen returned home in a state of shock after a few hours, Akram was brought home draped in a white cloth around 4 am on Sunday.

Soon after the blast, Yasmin and Afreen tried to rush towards the shop but other people prevented them from entering the eatery. They were under the impression that he was injured but the news was conveyed to them after they reached their home at Akashnagar in Amberpet police lines.

“He may have been alive had he not taken the few minutes to call my wife from the shop,” Akram’s father Asadullah Khan said, fighting tears.

Jilani Begum was informed about her son’s death only around midnight but she is yet to come to grip with the reality.

In fact, death came calling as Akram was dithering on whether to enter the heavily crowded eatery and he was reluctant to leave his two sisters alone in the auto. And when he decided to go in, he told his sisters that he would be back in a minute.

Akram was the only son among the six children of a head constable of City Armed Reserve, Asadullah Khan, and Jilani Begum and naturally got special attention from his parents.

Akram was devoted to his family and as his father was suffering from high blood pressure, he managed the house and took care of the needs of his sisters while not neglecting his studies.

‘Ladka to heera tha. Sirf ghar walon ka hi nahin, ham sab ka khayal karta tha,” (Akram was a gem. he used to help every one in the colony) Akram’s cousin Mohammad Dastagir told this website's newspaper.

Akram even assured his father that as the only son, he would shoulder the responsibility of getting his five sisters married for which he was planning to go abroad. But fate willed otherwise. The funeral was held in the afternoon and hundreds of people bade a tearful adieu to the victim.