Nightmare ends, couple jailed in Qatar on drug expenses return to Mumbai

More than 21 months in the past, when Mohammad Shareeq and Oniba Qureshi left for Qatar on what they believed can be a second honeymoon, they may not have imagined they’d find yourself in jail with a 10-year sentence for a drug offence.
The couple returned dwelling on Thursday morning, after spending a yr and 9 months behind bars in Qatar. Still traumatised, they rued having trusted an aunt who had tried to make use of them as a courier for medicine.
The aunt has since been arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) for operating a “well-organised drug trafficking syndicate”.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Shareeq recalled the evening the aunt, Tabassum Qureshi, had referred to as them and insisted they make the journey to Qatar. Oniba was one month pregnant on the time.
“We were about to sleep (on July 3, 2019), when she rang to say that she wanted to send us on a second honeymoon, and had bought our tickets for Doha.” He was initially reluctant, Shareeq mentioned, as a result of he hadn’t utilized for go away at work – however in the end allowed himself to be persuaded by Tabassum.
He took go away they usually left for Bengaluru on July 4, from the place they have been to catch the flight to Doha.
At the airport, Tabassum handed Oniba a bag, saying a good friend would come to take it from their lodge in Doha. What the couple didn’t know then that 4.1 kg of cannabis was hid contained in the bag.
In Bengaluru, a good friend of Tabassum’s approached them, checked the bag, and requested them to place some extra garments in it, Shareeq mentioned. That made him suspicious, and he demanded an evidence from his aunt over the telephone. “She told us there was just tobacco inside, and asked us to trust her. We believed her because she was a relative,” Shareeq mentioned.
However, he began recording each dialog with Tabassum after that, Shareeq mentioned. It was that which in the end helped set up his innocence, Shareeq mentioned.
As the couple landed in Doha on July 6, they have been confronted at immigration by Qatari drug enforcement officers. “They started inspecting our bags. They tore open the bag that our aunt had given us, and took out the hashish,” Shareeq mentioned.
For the following seven days, the couple have been requested the identical questions time and again: Whose bag is that this? Who gave you this bag? Who have been you presupposed to ship this bag to? Who are your contacts?

“We had only one answer – that our aunt Tabassum Qureshi gave us this bag, and we knew nothing else,” the couple mentioned.
They have been stored in a small, windowless, extraordinarily chilly room, Shareeq mentioned. “The walls were black. Just a faint reflection of light entered the room through a small hole. There were two airconditioning ducts. It was freezing inside, but the blankets were too dirty and smelly to use,” he added.
The couple have been subsequently moved to the central jail in Doha. Five months later, they have been convicted and sentenced to 10 years in jail.
“We had lost all hope. We would just cry all day. We could not imagine why our aunt did this to us,” Oniba mentioned. The couple have been stored aside, and met solely 4 instances within the yr and 9 months that they spent in jail. “Our daughter Ayat was born on February 26, but I did not get to see her for eight months,” Shareeq mentioned.

Meanwhile, members of the couple’s household pursued their case with authorities in India. The NCB, which was investigating, arrested six folks together with the aunt.
In February, the Court of Cassation, the best courtroom within the Qatari system, accepted the couple’s attraction. On March 29, the courtroom ordered their launch. After completion of formalities, the couple might lastly board a flight again to India on Wednesday night.