HYDERABAD: Remember Razia Begum who rode a scooter for more than 1,400 km in three days to bring her son back home during Covid-19 lockdown two years ago? The 50-year-old government teacher from Bodhan in Nizamabad district showed immense courage in April 2020 riding her scooter to bring her son Nizamuddin Aman back from Nellore where he had been stuck due to the lockdown.
Razia and her 21-year-old son are again miles apart throwing a challenge to the mother on how to bring her son back home.
Nizamuddin is stuck in Sumy city in northeastern Ukraine close to the Russian border. While students from some other parts of Ukraine have been able to return to India after the evacuation process began following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Nizamuddin has had to stay put.
Both mother and son had a deal. “Both of us have stuck to the terms and conditions of the deal,” Razia said. Her laughter indicates that she is completely at ease though her son is stranded in a war zone.
“I do not get information about the war and the situation in Ukraine from any source. My son is my source. He calls me and informs me how he is doing. Sometimes, when he is unable to call if he has to rush to a bomb shelter, he sends a message,” Razia told TOI.
Nizamuddin, a first year medical student of Sumy State University, called her on Friday afternoon informing that nothing concrete had materialised about their evacuation from Sumy.
“I am a fearless woman. My son too is like me. He is fearless too,” she explained.
Razia’s husband Mohammad Waliuddin had died 14 years ago due to sickness. It is for this reason that both mother and son felt he should become a doctor and serve the society. Her brother too had pursued medicine abroad and is working as a doctor in a hospital in Nizamabad.
Razia herself is involved in social service activities.
On March 2, she wrote a letter to the Nizamabad district collector about her son stranded in Ukraine urging that measures be taken to bring him back to India.
