‘I just want to talk to my son, see him once’

in vain. She now waits outside schools and wanders the streets of Srinagar, hoping to catch a glimpse of her son. Her eyes moist, Kouser pleads: ‘‘I had come to take my son back, but now I just want to talk to him once, see him once. It has been a year now, I miss him.’’

There is an Interpol warrant out against her husband for taking away Nabeel from the UK, while the British police wants him in at least two more cases. British Home Secretary David Blunket had spoken with then deputy prime minister L K Advani during his February visit to India on the issue. The J-K police too has set up a special team to help. But nothing has worked. ‘‘I am now waiting for a miracle,’’ Kouser says as she shows Nabeel’s snaps, taken at his Netherthorpe Primary Scho-ol, Sheffield. ‘‘These were taken a week before his abduction.’’ This was not how Kouser’s story was supposed to turn out. A PhD in Veterinary Sciences, she was an assistant professor when she left for the UK in 1995, where her husband had landed a Commonwealth Fellowship.

However, even she couldn’t have imagined how it would all change. ‘‘Khan took political asylum and became a British citizen. He told me if I wanted the marriage to work, I should give up the idea of returning,’’ she says. Then started the beatings. ‘‘He would hit me, not let me go out of our house. I was scared of a divorce because of the stigma.’’

Nabeel was born in July 1996. Four years later, Khan completed his degree and took up a job in Nottingham. ‘‘He didn’t take us along. He refused to even give me his phone number or address and would meet us only on weekends ,’’ she says. In August 2001, Khan decided to leave for Kashmir but took Kouser’s travel documents as well. ‘‘He didn’t return and took up a job in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia). Nabeel was in school and I didn’t have a penny to pay the bills or even buy food,’’ Kouser recalls. They were living in a council house and soon couldn’t afford the rent. But things improved after Kouser joined a science teacher’s training course and started getting a monthly bursary of 65 pounds.

In July 2002, Khan returned to the UK. ‘‘He told me he wanted to take Nabeel to Saudi Arabia. But this time I asked him to account for all the trauma he had put us through. He left and I received a divorce notice through post in October. He remarried within a month in November, but I had no idea.’’

Kouser was granted custody of her son by a Sheffield court in February 2003. But in July, Khan was back demanding to see Nabeel. ‘‘He told me he wanted to take Nabeel to a science park. I thought I have Nabeel’s passport so I let him go,’’ she says. ‘‘But they never returned. He finally left a message on my phone saying Nabeel would return in two days.’’

Kouser suspects Khan managed to procure a fradulent passport and took Nabeel to Saudi Arabia. ‘‘Nabeel is a hostage ,’’ she says.

When following Kouser’s complaint, the British Consulate in Riyadh contacted Khan, he immediately fled to Kashmir. In November 2003, the high court in London requested the Indian Government to help rescue the child. ‘‘The British government considers it a case of abduction and we are trying our best to secure Nabeel’s safe return,’’ a spokesman of the British High Commission in New Delhi told The Indian Express.

However, the J-K police team fear Khan and Nabeel may have left the Valley. Says Deputy Inspector General M Amin Shah: ‘‘We tried to question Khan’s relatives, but they took us to court.’’