A Hyderabad woman held captive by her in-laws at Somalia will return to Mumbai on April 2. The victim identified Afreen Begum along with her three daughters was rescued by the timely intervention of Prime Minister Modi. According to Somalia rules, wife and children can’t travel without the permission of the father, following which Modi intervened and assured of their safety.
According to reports, Afreen married one Mohamed Hussein Duale in 2013. The couple stayed in Hyderabad for a while, but after Hussein insisted of visiting his parents they flew to Somali. And since then haven’t come back. Afreen’s father Syed Gafoor Ali, who is an auto-rickshaw driver, said that he never got a chance to speak to his daughter, adding Afreen only communicated through WhatsApp calls with the help of her neighbours. Afreen’s father Syed approached the External Affairs Ministry (EAM) in 2019 who then looked into the matter.
“It was a blind case. We did not have her house address in Somalia. Mogadishu is a place where bomb blasts occur almost every 10-15 days. Besides, the family of Afreen’s husband was kind of warlord over there. It was a very difficult operation and we had to get all the paperwork ready before her actual rescue. It was impossible for us to keep her in Somalia for long,” said an officer who rescued Afreen.
