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Friday last was Nazish’s funeral. Her body lay for viewing down in the basement of Boonton’s Islamic Centre where women quietly filed past. She looked fragile but at peace shrouded in white. Traces of black eyeliner and mascara were still visible on her pale face, drained of life. We all sobbed silently for her, a beautiful young mother of two, taken away by an assassin’s bullet in the prime of her life.
Nazish Noorani was 27. Her two strapping sons Shayaan, five, and Rayaan, three, were outside playing under a shady tree. The boys wondered why the mourners were closing in on them. Conscious of the strangers’ gazes they instinctively moved closer to their paternal grandmother and their aunt. They appeared scanning for faces to recognise the one and only that held their world together – their mother. Separated by one floor of stairs, little did they know that they would never see their mother again.
Thousands of Pakistani-Americans were present to pray before Nazish’s coffin was carried out and put in a nearby waiting hearse to take her on her final journey. We watched and cried some more. There was not a single dry eye that day.
“A Pakistani couple has been shot in Boonton. The woman is dead,” my daughter comes running to our bedroom late at night just as we’re getting ready to sleep. “What happened?” I instinctively blurt out, fearing the worst – a hate crime. As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the hype in America gets excessive.
Boonton, a middle-class community in New Jersey is a township of 9,000 inhabitants who came together to mourn, pray, sympathise and condemn the tragedy which took one of theirs away. Nazish had returned only to die. A day after the murder, a memorial service was held at St. John's Episcopal Church followed by a candlelight vigil where people of different faiths gathered.
On that fateful night of August 16, Nazish and her husband Kashif Pervaiz, 26, were getting ready to drive back to Brooklyn after Iftar at Nazish’s sister Lubna Chaudhry, near their aged father and brother Faheem Noorani’s house, old-time residents of Boonton. Their five-year-old had stayed back in Brooklyn where Kashif’s parents live. The last minutes of Nazish’s life bring out the poignancy of a young desperate wife trying to patch up her marriage and keep her family intact. “We were sitting in another room discussing clothes when Nazish got up to leave after receiving a text message from her husband that it was time to go. It was around 11.30pm.”
Kashif’s SUV was parked two houses away at the senior Noorani’s driveway. Goodbyes said, the couple began to walk, with Nazish pushing her three-year-old’s stroller to the car. Suddenly shots rang out breaking the deathly darkness of a quiet night, Lubna ran out only to be met by her next door neighbour who was shouting “Your sister has been shot. She’s lying keeled over your nephew’s stroller. Her husband is also hurt.”
In one flash, the flame of life that burnt bright in Nazish’s short troubled life was snuffed out. She had been shot straight in her heart. She was dead.
The next morning the local TV channels with their crews descended on Boonton. The killing was front-paged in all the papers in New Jersey and New York. Lubna and Faheem gave interviews to the press questioning their brother-in-law’s statement to the police. “I hope he’s not involved” a grief-stricken Faheem said. A day later news of Kashif’s involvement in his wife’s murder was out before we gathered at the Islamic Centre for the Friday prayer and the funeral.
Lubna told me she can talk to me after she returns home from burying her sister. When I called her later, she said that Kashif had been trying to lure Nazish out of the house for an ice cream or just a late night stroll ever since they arrived in Boonton. “But Nazish wouldn’t go out with him preferring to spend time with me. Finally on that fateful night, he persuaded Nazish to walk down with him to fetch their SUV which he had purposely parked at my father’s house.”
The written affidavit to the police contains admission of Kashif’s involvement in the crime. We now know that there was a woman involved. Antoinette Stephen, daughter of Indian immigrants is alleged to have driven from Boston to finish off Nazish. Kashif was her boyfriend and had asked her help to rid him of his wife who was refusing to divorce him.
The exchange of text messages between Kashif and Stephen show how the two planned the murder with chilling details. Four days before the murder, Antoinette texted Kashif with this message: “You hang in there. Freedom is just around ur corner.” Two days later, Kashif texted Antoinette: “Well I need to speak to you and explain to you how to approach the situation. ill be depositing money tomorrow morning and ill see you tomorrow evening night” [sic].
Lubna told me that Kashif looked very “restless and out of sorts” throughout the couple’s stay in Boonton. “Normally, Kashif would joke and tease Nazish, but this time he looked very serious and didn’t want to engage in conversation.” Lubna who is nine years older than Nazish is determined to fight for the custody of the two boys: “We don’t want them growing up in that house (their paternal grandparents). They are our late sister’s sons and we will make sure that we are fully engaged in their lives.”
Earlier at the funeral, I talked to Kashif’s mother, Mrs Shafiq Hassan. She appeared grief stricken. “People may blame us for the tragedy and ostracise us. Our world is lost. Our lives are ruined. Nazish was like a daughter to us and we loved her very much.” When I ask her about Shayaan and Rayaan, the two youngsters playing nearby, she says “We love the boys. They will live with us. They are used to living with us. They will start school this Fall in Brooklyn.”
What does one say to the mother of a son who has an hour ago admitted to assisting in his wife’s murder? Did the Hassan family know that their son was an abusive philanderer who had lied to his wife and her family about being a successful architect with a roaring contracting business and being on the honour roll at Columbia University and Harvard?
Lubna told me that her sister was very fearful of the future of her two boys. “She lived in fear of Kashif, and would often cry before me saying ‘Baji, I want our marriage to work for the sake of our children but I am now very tired trying.’ Last month Nazish sent a text message to her elder brother Kaleem saying: “I dont no wht to do, Cant talk to him cuz he abuse me than ... he dosent wanna live with me ... i dont no kids get scared of him sometimes ... im so tired of this ... i dont no I m scared ... someday u will find me dead because its cuz of kashi ... he wants to kill me’” [sic].
Kashif Pervaiz has admitted in the affidavit that he “physically abused Noorani and had extramarital affairs.” Two guns were recovered from his car, a 9 mm Luger and Sig Sauer. “DYFUS (Division of Youth and Family Services) will take Shayaan and Rayaan away for adoption by foster parents,” a lady at the funeral fears. The child protection and child welfare agency’s mission is to ensure the safety, permanency and well-being of children and to support families. The boys cry for their mother and ask when will she come. “Mummy’s gone to get diapers,” the grandmother tells them.
