I shall live on their memories: Mother who lost all 7 children in Fujairah fire

News Network
January 27, 2018

A mother has been left devastated after she lost all her children on a single tragic night at Rol Didana area in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. Salima Al Suraidi’s seven children aged between five and 13 years suffocated to death in the wee hours of last Monday (January 22) as a fire broke out at their villa.

In response to a call from the Ras Al Khaimah Sports and Cultural Club, mothers, grandmothers and educators have offered condolences to the distressed mother. The agonised mother, in her thirties, said she could do nothing but accept her fate and surrender to her destiny. "To Allah we belong, and to Him is our return," she said. "I shall live on their memories, and recall their words in which they were bidding her farewell."

They used to tell me that they wish to join their late father who died because of a serious chronic disease five years ago, she added. The twins I gave birth to one month after their father's death were talking about their father on their last day just hours before their sorrowful demise, she said.

"They grew up fast," she said. "I have been everything for them; their father, mother and friend."

One of Al Saridi's sisters was saying that her story and struggling in life deserves to be narrated. "This is because of the so many hardships and challenges I have been through on my own.

"The only one who was supporting and comforting me were my kids. Though I am trying to be patient, my mother does not stop crying over their loss and that is what I cannot take and tears my heart."

Al Saridi thanked the prudent leadership for their support and attempt to comfort her and ease her suffering. "On top of these are the instructions of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to implement fire safety procedures and smoke detectors so that such tragic incidents do not take place."

Hesa Said, deputy president of the RAK Sports and Cultural Club, said their call to offer condolences to the mother was the least thing they can do. "This visit to the mother has had a significant positive impact on her. The members of the club spare no effort to enhance the social relationships among the members of the society."

'They kissed me and went to bed'

Recalling the fateful night, when she told her children to get to bed, Salima Al Suraidi said: “They kissed me and went to bed. A moment later, my son Ahmad came to remind me that I had not said the daily ‘dua’ of ‘May Allah bless you and keep you safe’. I smiled and said the ‘dua’ after which they went to sleep. The room’s door was left open by them because my 13-year-old son, Khalifa, was afraid of darkness and the open door allows light to filter in.”

After her sons went to sleep, Salima retired to her room, along with her daughters, and took her medication before going to bed.

“I went to bed at 11pm but a little after midnight, I woke up as my twin daughters, Sumaiya and Sara, were awake as they were suffering from flu and cough and were getting fitful sleep. I applied some ointment and olive oil to help them get some relief and they went back to sleep.”
Soon, Salima fell into a deep sleep due to her medication (which she had been taking after she underwent an operation).

3:45a.m.

“At 3.45am, I woke up as I was having difficulty in breathing. The room was pitch dark. So I switched on my mobile phone light and saw my daughter Shouk, who was sleeping next to me, with a fixed stare, unmoving.

"I went to my twin daughters Sumaiya and Sara and found them dead. I then went to my daughter Shaikha who was sleeping next to her sister in the same room to find her breathing her last.

“I then rushed to the other room where my three sons slept to find my sons Khalifa and Ahmad dead, but Ali was still fighting for his life. He walked to the living room where he fell unconscious and died.”

Salima said that she was pouring water on her two children Ali and Shaikha who were still alive at that time in a desperate bid to save them but her attempt was in vain.

“I tried to revive them but I did not succeed.”

Call for help

Going nearly mad with shock and grief, Salima said she ran to the door of the hall, managed to open it after several attempts and cried out for help to the maid and then ran to call for her brother Rashid’s help.

“I felt myself losing control. I had pain in my chest because of the smoke. My brother rushed to my house and by then a thick smoke had engulfed the house. He covered his face with his ghotra (headdress) as he tried to save my children but they had already died of suffocation.” said Salima.

Her brother called the police and ambulance services.

Salima said that her sons had been doing well at school, were polite boys and always participated in school activities. Her eldest daughter, Shouk, liked poetic verses.

Salima thanked the UAE leadership for their care and support which has soothed her traumatised heart.

His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, ordered to provide all necessary care and support for the grieving mother.

Salima prays for the souls of her children every day, asking Almighty Allah to keep her children in his mercy and grant them heaven as well as provide her with patience to endure her loss.

She thanked all UAE people for their support and concern which has provided her the much-needed succour.

Comments

Mohammed
 - 
Monday, 29 Jan 2018

May Almighty ALLAH give Sabur to the Mother & Save Entire family from hell fire. Ya Rabb please forgive all our sins !! Aameen Ya Rabb !!!

ABDUL AZIZ SHE…
 - 
Saturday, 27 Jan 2018

INNA LILLAHI WA INNA ILAIHI RAJIVOON

I deeply express my hearthfelt condonlences to the mothe of 7 children 

May Allah Subanawataala give her Sabar to bear the biggest lose in her life.

Allahumma Aameen 

Allah Almighty knows better

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News Network
January 31,2020

New Delhi, Jan 31: The Supreme Court Friday dismissed the plea filed by one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, Pawan Gupta, seeking review of its order rejecting his juvenility claim.

The review plea filed earlier in the day was taken up for consideration in-chamber by a bench comprising Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and A S Bopanna. 

On January 20, the apex court had rejected the plea by Pawan who had challenged the Delhi High Court's order dismissing his juvenility claim.

Advocate A P Singh, who is representing Pawan in the case, said he filed a petition on his behalf seeking review of the top court's January 20 order on Friday.

While dismissing the plea, the top court had said there was no ground to interfere with the high court order that rejected Pawan's plea and his claim was rightly rejected by the trial court as also the high court.

It had said the matter was raised earlier in the review petition before the apex court which rejected plea of juvenility taken by Pawan and another co-accused Vinay Kumar Sharma and that order has attained finality.

Singh had argued that as per his school leaving certificate, he was a minor at the time of the offence and none of the courts, including trial court and high court, ever considered his documents.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Delhi Police, had said Pawan's claim of juvenility was considered at each and every judicial forum and it will be a travesty of justice if the convict is allowed to raise the claim of juvenility repeatedly and at this point of time.

The trial court on January 17 issued black warrants for the second time for the execution of all the four convicts in the case -- Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan (25), Vinay (26) and Akshay (31) -- in Tihar jail at 6 am on February 1. Earlier, on January 7, the court had fixed January 22 as the hanging date.

As of now, only Mukesh has exhausted all his legal remedies including the clemency plea which was dismissed by President Ram Nath Kovind on January 17 and the appeal against the rejection was thrown out by the Supreme Court on January 29.

Convict Akshay's curative petition was dismissed by the top court on January 30. Another death row convict Vinay moved mercy plea before President on January 29, which is pending.

Singh has also approached the trial court seeking stay on the execution scheduled on February 1, saying the legal remedies of some of the convicts are yet to be availed.

A 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012, in a moving bus in south Delhi by six people before she was thrown out on the road.

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News Network
January 17,2020

New Delhi, Jan 17: Airports in Srinagar and Jammu are to be “immediately” brought under the security cover of the CISF in view of the arrest of DSP Davinder Singh, a Jammu and Kashmir government order has said.

The two sensitive airports are to be “handed over” to the CISF by January 31, the order of the Jammu and Kashmir Home Department to the Director General of Police (DGP) said.

“This issue (CISF security at Srinagar and Jammu airports) has acquired immediacy in view of the recent developments relating to the arrest of Davinder Singh, DSP airport security, for trying to assist militants to travel to other parts of the country,” the order issued on Wednesday said.

Police had arrested Singh, a deputy superintendent of police, at Mir Bazar in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam district on Saturday, along with Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists Naveed Baba and Altaf, besides a lawyer who was operating as an overground worker for terror outfits.

The two airports are guarded by the CRPF and the J-K Police at present.

The Union government had last year decided that the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) will be handed over security of these two airports along with the one in Leh in view of their sensitive and strategic location and the threats it faced related to possible terrorist and hijack attempts.

CISF is the national civil aviation security force and at present it guards 61 airports including the ones at Delhi and Mumbai.

News agency had on January 13 reported that the Union home ministry sanctioned about 800 personnel to the CISF in order to take over security duties at the three airports of the newly created Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

As per the original plan, the CISF was to take over Jammu airport by next month and the Srinagar and Leh airports after the spell of severe cold ends.

However, officials said, keeping in mind the arrest of the DSP and his alleged links, the latest order has been issued which also directs the J-K Police to make arrangements for accommodation, transport and other logistical requirements of the armed contingent of the CISF on a quick basis.

Once inducted at the most-sensitive Srinagar airport, the CISF will secure access control at both city and air side (tarmac area) while the CRPF will be responsible for securing the outer periphery. At the Jammu airport, the peripheral security duties will be rendered by the JK Police.

An assortment of surveillance and security gadgets like CCTVs, observation monitors, hand-held metal detectors, bullet-proof patrol vehicles and bomb detection and disposal equipment are also being provided by the airport operator, the Airports Authority of India (AAI), to the CISF.

The Union government sometime back made it clear that CISF will be the only civil airports guarding force and all such facilities in the country will be gradually brought under its command to bolster aviation security and tighten anti-terror and anti-hijack protocols.

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News Network
June 22,2020

New Delhi, June 22: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to be “mindful of the implication of his words” as a controversy raged over his “no intrusion” remark about the violent face-off with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley.

“The Prime Minister must always be mindful of the implications of his words and declarations on our Nation’s security as also strategic and territorial interests,” Singh said in a statement here as Chinese media welcomed Modi’s ‘no intrusion’  remarks contending that it may lead to a de-escalation of tensions between China and India.

Congress has been maintaining that Modi’s assertions at Friday’s all-party meeting that neither was there any intrusion nor was any Indian post captured ran counter to the statements made by the Indian Army and the External Affairs Ministry.

Singh said the prime minister cannot allow his words to be used by China as a vindication of its position and all organs of the government should work together to tackle this crisis and prevent it from escalating further.

“We remind the Government that disinformation is no substitute for diplomacy or decisive leadership. The truth cannot be suppressed by having pliant allies spout comforting but false statements,” the former prime minister said.

Singh said the prime minister and the government should rise to the occasion to ensure justice for Colonel B Santosh and the army jawans who made the supreme sacrifice and resolutely defended the nation’s territorial integrity.

“To do any less would be a historic betrayal of the people’s faith,” the former prime minister said.

“At this moment, we stand at historic crossroads. Our Government’s decisions and actions will have serious bearings on how the future generations perceive us,” Singh said.

Singh said China was brazenly and illegally seeking to claim parts of Indian territory such as the Galwan Valley and the Pangong Tso Lake by committing multiple incursions between April 2020 till date.  

“We cannot and will not be cowed down by threats and intimidation nor permit a compromise with our territorial integrity,” said Singh. 

The former prime minister said this was a moment where “we must stand together as a nation and be united in our response to this brazen threat.”

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