ELECTION 99
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Her Client Killed, Attorney Tries To Restore Kids To Grandmother

M J Shenoy

For several months attorney Grace Hoffman has been preparing to get Dr Lubaina Bhatti Ahmed her divorce from what Hoffman and law enforcement officials describe as a vengeful and stubbornly abusive husband.

The final divorce hearing scheduled for Monday never took place as Lubaina and three relatives were found dead with their throats slashed. The estranged husband, 44-year-old Nawaz Ahmed was arrested in New York as he was about to get onto a PIA flight to Karachi.

Now, Hoffman is fighting to get the two children of the couple back in Ohio, so that they join their grandmother.

Nawaz had left the children with his relatives in New York before he tried to flee.

"There is so much of red tape involved," said Hoffman, clearly frustrated. "These children have lost their mother, their grandfather, an aunt and a niece. I am sure they have heard of the killing." The children, Ibtisam Tariq, 6, and Ahsan, 4, are with a government agency in New York. It is not known where the children were at the time of the murders.

Nawaz is charged with four counts of aggravated murder in the deaths of his wife, her father Abdul Majid Bhatti of Canada, her sister Ruhie Ahmad and her niece Nasira Ahmad, both of Oakland, California.

Nawaz, who is still held in New York, has refused to sign extradition papers, police officials in New York said. With that refusal, officials in Ohio will have to initiate proceedings that have be to authorized by high-ranking state officials.

"It could be weeks or months he is brought to Ohio," Hoffman said with a sigh.

Nawaz was earlier described by the police officials in St Clairsville, the sleepy Ohio town where the killings took place as a medical doctor who also had a degree in computer science.

But he was never a medical doctor, his lawyer and friends of the family said. He has a degree in computer science from Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, had lived in Columbus since at least February and worked at MCI WorldCom Advanced Network. He had worked for the air force in Pakistan before migrating to America.

Lubaina's neighbors are echoing what her lawyer and friends have been saying about the estranged husband who moved 100 miles away to Columbus after his wife started divorce proceedings and got restraint orders against him.

Lubaina's father had come from Canada to be with his daughter during the final week of the divorce proceeding. Ruhi Ahmed, who was also killed, had come to testify for her sister.

"He is a nasty man,'' neighbor Lorraine Carroll said. "She was mortally afraid of him.''

St Clairsville is in Belmont County, which has a population of 71,000, rarely sees a murder. So the brutal killing of four sent shock waves across the county.

Lubaina, 39, was a general practitioner specializing in internal medicine at East Ohio Regional Hospital in Martins Ferry. "She was popular, gentle and well-liked. She touched a lot of lives,'' hospital employee Maggie Espina said. "She really cared for her patients."

Complaints in the divorce file give some insight into Lubaina's fears about her husband.

In 1994, Nawaz grabbed his wife by the hair, dragged her some distance and slapped her, according to allegations in a police report in the file from Wheeling, West Virginia. A case file alleges he beat her again in October 1995.

"There were a lot of incidents of verbal and physical abuse," said Hoffman. "And yet it took Dr [Lubaina] Ahmed a long time to seek divorce."

Nawaz had mistreated his wife since she moved from Canada for their arranged marriage in 1992, said Hoffman.

Lubaina feared her husband so much that she refused to press charges against him, according to court papers.

She filed for a divorce in February. The Ahmeds were to appear before Belmont County Judge Jennifer Sargus on Monday.

"It's sad. Things like this just don't happen around here,'' Judge Sargus said.

A Belmont County deputy sheriff found the four bodies on Saturday afternoon in a basement room of the Ahmeds' two-story brick home about two miles south of St Clairsville on Graham Road.

The killings stunned Carroll and other neighbors.

"She had all the locks changed when he left. How did he get into the house? That's what I can't understand,'' Ellabee Horvath said.

Hoffman too said could not understand how he got into the house. "They all knew he was a very dangerous man," she said.

EARLIER FEATURE:
Doc Wanted For Four Murders Nabbed

Next: Holy Smoke Rouses Critics In Venice

Tell us what you think of this report