Wednesday, January 4, 2012

London 7/7 bombings: Family's lasting shock over attacks


Farida PatelFarida Patel said she had become more reclusive since the attacks

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Thinking back to 12 July, 2005, Farida Patel says it was the day her life "fell apart".
That was the day officers from Scotland Yard entered her family home and told her that her son-in-law, Mohammad Sidique Khan, was one of the suspected London suicide bombers.

In her first media interview since the 7 July bombings, Mrs Patel described her state of disbelief at the time.
"I said 'Why my house, why search my house?' and when they told me it was my daughter's husband, I was shocked," she said.
"At first they thought he was my son, but I said, 'No he was not my son - he was my son-in-law'."
The police raid came just days after the bombing attacks on London's transport network, which killed 52 people.
Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, was the ringleader of the group behind the bombings, which included Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hasan, 18, and Muslim convert Germaine Lindsay, 19.
'Bad memories'
Khan, originally from Leeds, moved first to Batley and then to nearby Dewsbury, in West Yorkshire, after his marriage to Mrs Patel's daughter, Hasina, in 2001. They had a daughter in 2004.
Mrs Patel, who came to the United Kingdom from South Africa in 1967, had worked in a Dewsbury secondary school and was a key member of the local Muslim community.
Read the rest on the BBC
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