by Dennis Smith
Salman went on to become a police cadet, even though he wanted to become a doctor, as the main profession in my family was medicine. Apart from your academic standing, when you apply to medical schools they want to see your extracurricular activities. So joining the NYPD and getting an EMT license added some points for him, as did studying abroad and doing volunteer hospital work. So when he applied to medical colleges, he looked good on his résumé. We also had a family friend, Elijav, who was a NYPD sergeant and a military veteran, but Salman would never let me ask for any help.
Actually, I don’t remember getting anything for him after his ninth birthday. Even when he graduated, and I told him I wanted to throw a party for him, he said, “Well, you can have it, but I won’t be here.” So I asked, “Why don’t you let me celebrate something for you?” He replied, “I’m not proud of it. When I’m proud of doing something, I’ll let you know. Then you can celebrate for me.” He had very high values, and was a humble person. Very humble. When our friend Elijav died, he was buried under the American flag. Salman said, “That is an honor, Mama, and that is how I want to go.” And that is how he went when he was finally laid to rest in April 2002.
He was also very compassionate. He would bring home sick birds and nurture them, and he would help people out. One day we were walking in Manhattan, and there was a car on the street with two ladies in it who had been in an accident. He pushed people aside and wanted to know what was going on. Mostly because he was an EMT, it just came automatically to him to respond. He did not need anybody’s command to tell him to go and do such a thing. His values and his personality enabled him to see other people’s pain. He could see them hurt, or in the hospital, and I think he felt their pain. When he was a teenager he stopped eating meat, and once when he saw me eating chicken, he said, “One day a chicken is alive, and you’re eating it now.” He became a vegetarian—that says a lot.
In September of 2001 Salman was in his final year of the police cadets. It was a three-year program, and he had applied the year before to medical schools. He had not been accepted, which happens to many students, and so he reapplied in 2001. He told me that if he did not get accepted again his aim was to get hired as a detective in the NYPD. As a cadet he worked out of different locations, including housing in Manhattan and a center near Queens College. He got paid by the hour by the NYPD, so he used to put in time over the weekend and evening to maintain himself. He also became a certified EMT and worked for one year with an ambulance company in Manhattan and in Brooklyn. By 2001 he was looking for a better job and got an offer from a pharmaceutical company, but he didn’t want to work there, explaining, “I want a job that will lead me to medical school.” So in August 2001 he took up a position as a protein lab analyst at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the Rockefeller University. He brought home only one paycheck.
For me September 11 began as a normal day, a normal Tuesday. We were in Bayside, where we had lived since 1989. I remember saying to Zeshan, “It’s a beautiful day, crisp.” I left about 7:15 A.M. with Zeshan to drop him off at Queens Community College, and I went to my school, Middle School 72, for work. Salman took the number 7 train to Manhattan and usually left home between 8:00 and 8:30 A.M. Because the train runs aboveground through Queens, he must have seen the towers burning. I used to pick him up from that train every day. He would call me on his cell phone—“Mama, leave home now”—but that Monday, September 10, he did not call: He had left his phone at work. So on the morning of 9/11, he had no cell phone during his commute to the city. I know he would have called to say, Turn on the television, look at what’s happening. And maybe if he had called home, we would have told him not to go there. That’s the whole thing: There’s a time and place. You know, also in death.
When I came out of my eighth-grade class for a break at about 10:20 A.M., I saw the other teachers huddled in the hallway, and I thought, Oh, maybe this is to see how the school is performing. So I went over to them and heard that they were talking about the towers burning and falling down. This couldn’t be right. I remember that moment saying to myself, This couldn’t be right. This can’t be right. Let me go and call home. So I went to the phone and I called my husband, and he was screaming his head off that the Twin Towers had been attacked, and they had fallen, and there was burning, and Salman is there. My Salman was there. I said, “Salman doesn’t even work there, why would he be there? There is no reason for him to be there.” Then he exclaimed, “Oh, the second tower is falling!” I said to my husband, “You are fine, and Salman is fine, too, you are both fine.” And the second tower fell while we were on the phone. Months later that’s where they said they found his remains. Under the North Tower. Why did my husband feel that he was there? Maybe Salman called out to him. I don’t know.
At school they asked for volunteers to stay until all the students were picked up, so I left later than usual and got home about 4:30 P.M. We tried to contact Salman, but his cell phone was going straight to voice mail. My husband sent his brother to check out Salman’s workplace, and when he returned he told us that Salman had never reported to his job that day. That was disturbing, for him not to report to his job, and then for him not to call home after the systems went back up. But that day we were not worried. I called Adnaan at SUNY Binghamton and told him vhaijan hadn’t come home. That’s what Adnaan called Salman—vhaijan, big brother. I said, “Don’t worry,” and everybody in the family figured that I wasn’t worried, but then the whole night passed and no call came in. So the next morning Salmeen and I went down to his job, and Salmeen couldn’t stop crying.
From that Wednesday morning Salmeen did not stop crying until he died. Even in the hospital, when he was dying, the staff asked me, Who is Salman? I asked why, and they said because every night Salmeen asks for Salman. They were best friends.
So Salmeen and I went to the Howard Hughes Institute, and we told the security guard there that we were Salman’s parents and had come to retrieve his cell phone. He got the phone for us, and then said that he had a friend in the FBI and would ask him to look for Salman. We asked him what to do, and he told us to go down to St. Vincent’s [Hospital]. That’s where all the injured and the dead bodies were being transferred, and we might be able get some information there. At St. Vincent’s we found a very long line, and they told us to go and look at the list of the injured and dead that came out every three hours. We waited over two hours on the line, and Salman’s name was on neither the injured list nor the dead list. So then we came home and made flyers with Salman’s photo.
On Thursday we somehow ended up at the armory on Twenty-fifth Street. Everybody was outside with pictures and posters looking for their loved ones. We were told to give our DNA sample there and to report Salman missing. We gave our name and address, his name and description, and whatever information we could provide. For the next ten days we searched for him, asking if anyone had seen him, but people did not remember, with so much powder and the dust that had come down that day.
They had given us a list of 150 hospitals where the injured had been sent, and we did go visit a few in Queens and one in New Jersey. We thought he might not be able to speak due to an injury, and we might find him somewhere. But he was nowhere to be found. Still, there was hope. Hope gives you that drive to keep moving forward in life. We have to have some hope.
Then, at the end of September, a man came to our store and said there were many people who had been detained. This gentleman used to work for the MTA [Metropolitan Transportation Authority], and he said that officials were asking about Salman. He said he told them, “I know this young man. He grew up in Greenpoint.” He knew our family because he used to work at the hardware store. He was Pakistani, and he said they didn’t ask him out of the blue: They were asking questions at the MTA, where they said that if anyone knew Salman Hamdani, to step up. And then he told me, “Maybe your son did not die over there, and you should write to the government and ask where your son is.” So we wrote a letter to President Bush.
Twenty-five days after 9/11 we decided to go to Mecca to pray to find Salman. Before we left I said I was going to call the morgue, because they were telling people on television to come and identify their loved ones. It took a lot of courage for me to make the decision to go and look at the dead bodies, but I said, “If I am going over to Mecca to get an answer whether he is alive or dead, let’s look at the dead bodies; if he’s among them, then I don’t need to make the trip.” Just for my own satisfaction I called the number the armory had given me. I don’t know if I misdialed, but they asked, “How did you get this number? Why are you calling here?” I explained that I had been given this number by the armory for information if I needed to investigate my missing son’s case. I gave him Salman’s name, and he said, “Oh, he is a Pakistani?” I said, “Yes, he was born there, but he is an American.” And then he said, “But he is also claimed by the British government—why is that?” I told him my sister came from Britain—maybe she had given his name there. He asked all sorts of questions about Salman—what he was wearing, what he looked like—and later that evening we got a call from another detective, asking questions.
On Saturday, when Salmeen and I were going into Manhattan to the morgue, that detective kept calling us: ‘Where are you now? Are you going there? What are you doing?’ But when we arrived there, it was the Red Cross; there was no morgue; there were no bodies to be identified. So why did they send me there? I don’t understand. I wanted to see the bodies. And all the hospitals I called gave me the same statement: We have fifteen victims ; fifteen patients came in. We cannot give you their names, but your son’s name is not on our list. And you are not allowed to see anybody to identify.
No other parents had to go through what we had to go through. It was horrible. Such a great injustice. You give your life, try to save your fellow Americans, and then this nation goes after you, calling you a terrorist.
On the day we were leaving for Mecca—October 12, 2001—a New York Post reporter came to talk to me about Salman and what he had been doing. He asked me, “Oh, your other son is the president of the MSA [Muslim Students Association] at Binghamton?” Adnaan was the president that year, and he was running for the secretary of some other organization.
That put my antennas up, and I said, “I don’t trust you.” While he was sitting there a reporter from the New York Times called, and then one from Newsday. I asked them, “What brings you back to my house so many months later?” Something must have happened to bring all the media back. One of the newsmen, from the Daily News, told me there was a flyer at the NYPD with your son’s name on it, asking anyone who knows Mohammed Salman Hamdani to come forward. I still have the flyer.
Despite this we left that day for Mecca. And the next day, October 13, the story hit the media that our family had gone to Mecca to pray for their son—except for the New York Post, whose headline was MISSING—OR HIDING?—MYSTERY OF NYPD CADET FROM PAKISTAN, by William J. Gorta and Simon Crittle. The implication and insinuation was that Salman was linked with terrorists and was seen at the Midtown Tunnel at 9:00 A.M. that day. After the funeral, much later, in April, I was watching New York 1 News, and the banner that ran at the bottom read: MOHAMMED SALMAN HAMDANI, WHO WAS THOUGHT TO BE A TERRORIST, WAS A HERO.
After we returned from Mecca two weeks later, on October 25, 2001, it was amazing: Calmness had descended upon us. Stepping into that mosque in Mecca was so peaceful. We needed that to get out of the grief. When we came back, everybody said we looked relieved. We were not unhappy, not so much in depression.
While I was over in Mecca I had a very significant dream. After performing the ritual of the Omra I went to sleep with a prayer asking God to just tell me whether Salman was alive or not. When I woke up at 5:30 in the morning, at the call of Adhan, I was in the middle of a dream in which I saw my family all standing around, and I asked my kids, “Where is Salman?” And he was standing outside on the road, outside the mosque near Mecca, and he was wearing his red shirt with his crew-cut hair. He had a pole in front of him and was looking at the ground, and he was very sad. And then I woke up, and I felt he was there, at Ground Zero.
It’s very hot at Mecca in the daytime, so what they usually do is go to the mosque in the evening and stay all night long, and then they sleep in the daytime. So I went to sleep, and when I woke it was around 3:30 P.M., the call of the Adhan in the late afternoon. But what was amazing was that the dream that I had in the morning [had] continued. This time Salman had joined us, and he had a shopping cart and was going shopping. I took that as an omen that he was alive: He would come back and join us. I figured that ten hours had passed between these two dreams, and that ten meant that something might happen if I wait ten weeks, ten months, then ten seasons. But nothing happened in ten weeks, ten months, or ten seasons, and now it’s the tenth year. This September will be ten years, and something has to happen this tenth year. Maybe. Maybe I will have a grandchild named Salman. Adnaan told me that he believes that Salman’s going to come back as a grandchild.
When we were in Mecca we got a call saying that Congressman [Gary] Ackerman’s office wanted to contact us about Salman. When we came back we met with him, and after a few conversations he was sure that there was nothing wrong with our family, and now we are very good friends. He also made us write a letter to [Attorney General John] Ashcroft, saying that Salman might be with ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I said, “Why would he be with ICE? He’s an American citizen.” [Ackerman] said, “But he wasn’t born here.” The dividing line is whether you were born here or not. And so in November we wrote a letter at his suggestion. When he was satisfied that nothing was going on, he did not deny it: He led us to believe that Salman might have been detained. So the hope was still there that one day he would come home—a lot of hope. Even if Salman had been detained, at least he would be alive. I wanted my child back. I didn’t care where he was as long as he was alive. Because a child is a child.
In the third week of January 2002, we received a form letter from the White House: Thank you for reaching out to the President, we are forwarding your inquiry to the FBI. A letter from the FBI arrived five days later which said, We only investigate criminals, so if your child is involved in a crime, then we can help you.
After all this time, two officers came to our house on March 20, 2002, at 11:30 P.M. Salmeen and I were the only two at home, as Zeshan had gone to California that day and Adnaan was then at Syracuse University Medical School. The officers said, We are confirming that your son’s remains were identified through DNA at the Twin Towers. Here is the medical examiner’s number; you should call them right now. My husband just fell to the floor right there, but they were adamant: Go get the phone and call the ME. I said, “You know what, officers, thank you very much. You have done your job. You can leave now.” And they did not have the decency to tell my husband, before giving this bad news, Have a seat, we want to talk to you. They just came in and blurted it out. I found that to be very crude, crude and unprofessional. Then I said, “Nothing is going to happen now. If he is dead, he is dead.”
I gave Salmeen some medication to help him sleep, and the next day we went down to the medical examiner’s office. They had a big file. They said they found his lower body part, from his waist down, and thirty-four pieces. And so I said, “Why did it take you so long? When did you find it?” The ME said, “The third week of October—O
ctober 23 and October 26.” He explained that they had to match each body part with my husband’s DNA, and then with my DNA. It didn’t sound very convincing. I waited a long time—four months. DNA comes back in two weeks.
So I said, “Who is to say that these are the remains of my child? I want to have my own DNA testing done.” He had a file in front of him, which he pulled toward himself and said, “Go get yourself a lawyer.” He was very defensive. My mother-in-law was there and asked, “Why are you becoming so defensive? All we are asking is that you convince us that our boy is dead. And if you are trying to help [us] understand the situation, you are not doing the right thing.” He said, “You have two options, Mrs. Hamdani. You can take the remains and the death certificate and do whatever you want with it. Otherwise, it will remain with us, and whenever you are ready, we will have it. If you want to have someone do your own DNA testing, it will have to be done in front of us.”
I had to inform my family, who came to attend the funeral: Salmeen’s brother, my brother, my sister from England. I knew the media would come up to my door again, once they heard Salman had been identified, so the next day Salmeen and I went to California to visit my sister. We took the remains. The funeral parlor handled it, and we went there the day before the funeral. There was a casket, but I don’t know what was in it. We were told not to open it, because there was nothing in it to see. And they gave us his jeans. The jeans were his. One of the legs was missing from the knee down, and one leg was there. And one sock. But those were his jeans.