JEDDAH, 27 February 2008 — The twists and turns in the ongoing love saga between an Indian girl and a Pakistani cricketer has all the hallmark of a Bollywood film; only here the ending may not be all that happy.
The fairy tale love marriage between an Indian girl, Maha (alias Ayesha Siddiqui), and Shoaib Malik, Pakistan cricket captain, has reached such a pass that the girl’s father just wants to finalize a divorce in order to close a chapter that has left his daughter’s life in tatters.
The real bone of contention in this ongoing drama is the rival claims on the marriage. Malik categorically denies marrying Ayesha, though he admits having a relationship with her. Ayesha’s father, Ahmad Siddiqui, emphatically states that a “nikah” (an Islamic marriage contract) took place and he has the “nikahnama” to prove it.
“We just want a divorce for my emotionally shattered daughter who has undergone several traumatic experiences due to her ill-fated marriage to Malik, who has tortured my innocent daughter physically, mentally and emotionally and has left her in a state of shock and disbelief,” said Ahmad.
“We don’t want any compensation or maintenance whatsoever for my daughter. Imran Zafar, Malik’s brother-in-law, is spreading rumors that we have asked for 1.5 million rupees from (Malik), which is nothing but a campaign to malign my family. We have not made any such demand nor accepted anything, nor will ever accept anything from Malik,” Ahmad told Arab News.
Malik, meanwhile, has now threatened to sue the Indian family for alleging that he married their daughter. In a press conference in Lahore recently, Malik confirmed he had an affair with Ayesha but denied that “nikah” ever took place.
“I liked Ayesha and I told my family about her,” Malik said. “The elders of both the families discussed the matter but the chapter was closed after they couldn’t agree on certain things. I can never think of cheating on a girl and since it is something that disturbs me, I am here to clarify the matter,” Malik told reporters.
However, Ahmad dismisses Zafar’s claim that a nikah did not take place. It was Malik who had called him and asked for his daughter’s hand, he said.
“Although I had objections to my daughter marrying a Pakistani boy, I agreed because both of them were keen,” he said. Ahmad reiterates the couple married over the phone after a brief courtship, with witnesses on both sides. “I have the ‘nikahnama’ issued by an official in Sialkot,” he said.
The “nikah”, which involves an exchange of vows, was performed on June 3, 2002, when Ayesha was in Hyderabad and Malik in Sialkot. Ayesha’s cousins were the witnesses in Hyderabad while Malik’s parents and other relatives were with him in Sialkot.
Arab News has seen a “nikahnama” issued in the name of Shoaib Malik and Maha Siddiqui, at Tehsil/Thana City Sialkot, dated June 3, 2003. The names of the witnesses mentioned in the nikahnama are of Mukhtar Ali Khan s/o Abdur Rahman Khan, a resident of Greenview Street, Sialkot, and Syed Abrar Hussain s/o Syed Mubashir Ali, a resident of 17/7, Zafar Ali Road, Sialkot. Malik’s address is shown as House No. A-4, Tariq Colony, Sialkot.
The name of the Qazi who performed the “nikah”, is mentioned as Hafiz Mohammed Khalid s/o Mohammed Muneer of Chanda, Sialkot, and the amount of dower mentioned is 500 rupees. The “nikahnama” bears the signature and stamp of Nasir Khan, registrar of marriages. It also bears the signatures of Ayesha and Malik.
Siddiqui said that the paltry amount of 500 rupees as dowry makes it clear that “the girl was not after Malik’s money.”
But why was the marriage kept secret for years?
Ahmad says that Malik always pressured Ayesha and the family to keep it a secret for some time. Keeping in view his celebrity status and his career we kept quiet, though reluctantly.
He adds that Malik has visited Hyderabad several times and stayed at his Banjara Hills residence. Once, he stayed with Ayesha in the Taj Krishna Hotel in Hyderabad.
“If he was not married to Ayesha then how could they have stayed together in a hotel?” he asks, adding “Malik introduced Ayesha as his wife to former Indian cricketer Mohammed Azharuddin and his wife, whom he met at the hotel.”
Ahmad says Malik is threatening Ayesha over the phone in order to make her retract the statement regarding their marriage. He offered money as a softener and then said if she did not withdraw her statement she and her family would meet with dire consequences.
The love story that began in Sharjah in 2000 is ironically at a stage where both parties are leveling charges and counter-charges. Malik and Ayesha met in Sharjah over a chance incident, but both were attracted to each other after the meeting, according to Ayesha.
“I was sitting with my friends in a hotel when he came up to me with a room key that we had dropped. I didn’t recognize him then and just said thank you,” Ayesha recalled about her first encounter with the cricketer. “I was surprised to learn from my friends later that he was Shoaib Malik. We then started talking on the phone and remained in touch through the Internet.”
However, Malik claims the affair started through Internet. This continued for a year before they decided to marry. Malik suggested that they should first marry over the phone and later inform her parents.
Ahmad also states that he hosted the entire Pakistani team at his residence in Hyderabad, India in 2005, which he claims was a wedding reception.
Ayesha corroborates her father’s claims, saying that Malik visited Hyderabad several times, and nobody outside the two families knew about this.
“He was here in September 2002 and again in November 2004,” she said. “We went together for a movie and nobody recognized him,” said Ayesha.
However, speaking to reporters in Pakistan, Malik’s brother-in-law Zafar, rubbished Ahmad’s claims, adding that he and Malik had applied for Indian visas and would be going there soon to file a case of fraud against his family.
“We didn’t want this issue to be raked up in public, but they are taking advantage of Malik’s popularity as a cricketer,” he said. “The thing is Malik liked a girl they claimed was their daughter but they showed him pictures of another girl. When he did meet their daughter it was not the one they had shown in the photo.” But Ahmad claims Malik wanted to end the marriage not for the reasons he had stated but “just to gain good will and build his image. It is a clear case of torture, cheating and deception.”
Siddiqui says his daughter is “devastated and traumatized” by the whole issue and has been hospitalized many times.
Adding to the litany of charges, Ahmad says that Malik even forced Ayesha to undergo a dangerous operation to shed weight and become more attractive.
“My daughter, who is madly in love with Malik, and in an effort to save her marriage, went alone to Delhi’s Apollo Hospital for this operation. Doctor Kriplani, who performed the operation, was shocked to learn that she had come alone from Hyderabad to Delhi for the surgery,” said Ahmad.
Ahmad blames Zafar for spoiling their relationship with Malik for his own financial gains. “He is a jobless carpenter and depends on Malik to maintain his family,” he said. “He always extracts money from Malik. Once Malik told me that he had given half a million rupees to Imran (Zafar) to set up a business which he wasted.”
“Imran is worried that if Ayesha is with Malik, obviously like any other wife, she will not allow him to give his hard-earned money to Imran all the time. Due to this sense of insecurity, Imran has played this game,” Ahmad says, adding that Ayesha has sent costly gifts to Malik’s sister Shazia, who is married to Zafar.
“She wanted to win over the family. She sent costly jewelry and her laptop in 2004, which contained her personal photos and her friends’ photos, to her, through one of her friends, who is a teacher in Jeddah,” he said.
Ahmad, while taking a firm stand, also feels that the airing of the saga out in the open has not done anybody any good. He says that his family called Malik and his family many times but they “refused to talk to us.”
“Shoaib Malik never tried to talk to us even once,” he said. “This behavior has saddened us deeply.”
