Dr Afia Siddiqui, "missing" with her three children from Karachi for six years, was underground in Pakistan and Afghanistan all this time. She was arrested on July 21 this year from Kabul and has been flown to the United States to face terrorism-related charges.Contrary to several newspaper reports over the years, including recent ones, Dr Siddiqui has never been in Pakistani custody and neither in that of the US, until her arrest barely two weeks ago. She left the US in early 2003 as the net around her was tightening, since she was believed to be involved in offering her scientific expertise and other help to Al Qaeda or related groups.
Dr Siddiqui, along with her three children, took a cab from her mother's house in Gulshan-e-Iqbal in Karachi on March 30, 2003, to take a flight for Rawalpindi, but never arrived at the airport. The family, it appears, was not unaware of Dr Siddiqui's whereabouts although it kept claiming otherwise.
| So when do they get arrested? |
Dr Siddiqui, who spent 10 years at prestigious American academic institutions, completing her PhD in genetics, returned to Pakistan in 2002 but went back to the US in February 2003, apparently to look for a job appropriate to her qualifications. She returned to Karachi by the end of February 2003 after renting a post office box in her name in Maryland for receipt of her mail. It has been claimed by the FBI that the box was hired for Majid Khan, allegedly a member of Al Qaeda residing in Baltimore.
At the time, NBC reported that the Pakistani scientist had been arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of facilitating money transfers for the terror networks of Osama Bin Laden, a report her mother called "absurd".