Four -year-old Faizal snatches the family album from her mother, looks at his father’s pictures and shouts out aloud ‘Abba’.

His father, Umar Sheikh, was the driver of the taxi in which the lone arrested terrorist Ajmal Kasab and his deceased partner Abu Ismail Khan planted an RDX which exploded in Vile Parle on 26/11 last year.

Remembering her late husband, Momina Khatun (31) says, “Kya bolein kaisa haal hai humara? (How do I explain my condition?)”

A year after the blast, Momina makes ‘gajras’ (strings of jasmine flowers) for a flower shop at Shivaji Nagar and earns a meagre Rs 50 to Rs 60 per day. With this she meets her four children’s demands — from basic necessities to occasional luxuries such as candy or egg for lunch.

Just about eight months before the terror attacks, Sheikh had called Momina to Mumbai. Remembering last Id celebrations, Momina says, “I had cooked biryani and sweets. My husband’s friends and relatives came home and everything was over by the evening. This year, they all came but cried and returned. The small quantity of sweets that I had prepared remained uneaten.”

It has been a difficult year for this primary school dropout. With media persons approaching her constantly, police officers questioning about her husband’s credentials to making rounds of various government offices to get the compensation money announced for the victims of the attack, she has seen several ups and downs. And yet she does not wish to leave the city.

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