Hyderabad: The Shoaib-Ayesha controversy
turned murkier today with the Pakistani cricketer claiming he
was emotionally forced into the `nikahnama` with the Hyderabad
girl but said the marriage was invalid as her family had
cheated him and ruled out divorce.
On a surprise visit to the city days before his marriage
to tennis star Sania Mirza, Shoaib Malik distributed a press
statement and also took a few questions from a battery of
mediapersons outside Sania`s house in posh Jubilee Hills.
28-year-old Shoaib will tie the knot with 23-year-old
Sania on April 15 here and a reception will be held at the Taj
Krishna the same day.
After days of flip-flop, Shoaib admitted to the
`nikahnama` but said it was invalid since the intention was to
cheat. He said to this day he has not met the girl whose
photographs were sent to him by the Siddiqui family purported
to be that of Ayesha.
"Now they are asking for a divorce. To begin with there
was no `nikah` because they pressurised me into it with the
intention to cheat. In Islam, there can only be a divorce if
the `nikah` is valid," he said.
Shoaib`s statement comes two days after the Siddiqui
family demanded that he gives an "official divorce" to
29-year-old Ayesha and appointed a lawyer to sue him in
Pakistan.
"I was wrongly made to believe that the pictures Ayesha
had sent me were of the girl I was marrying. I feel terrible
about the mess created by a family that has caused a great
grief to my own people and the family of my bride-to-be," he
said.
Shoaib also said he had met Ayesha a number of times but
knew her as `Maha apa`, elder sister of Ayesha and never got
to actually meet the girl in the photographs sent to him.
The Pakistani cricketer said it was only by accident that
he got to know that Maha apa and Ayesha were the same girl.
"We accidentally ran into the truth about who Ayesha was.
It was the worst moment of my life. No one enjoys being made a
fool of and that was exactly how I was made to look. It
happened in August 2005. My brother-in-law got a photograph of
a teacher in Saudi Arabia who was telling people around her
that she was married to me. His nephews were studying in that
school.”
"I was aghast when he showed me the photograph of the
teacher. The woman in it was the person I called `Maha apa`. I
immediately confronted `Maha apa`. It was she who had been
making a full of me all these years, pretending to be the
person whose pictures she had been sending me. I told her I
didn`t even want to speak to her again. At that point I
wondered if I could ever trust anyone again."
The Pakistani cricketer began the two-page statement by
saying that he wanted to clarify "wrongly reported facts" in
newspapers and television channels both in India and Pakistan.
"I want to make my position clear especially because I`m
to wed Sania Mirza in the near future," he said.
"Sania knows the truth and she is very happy," said
Shoaib adding, "I`m here for my marriage. It`s a legal thing
and my lawyer will answer everything."
In Karachi, Farooq Hassan hired by Ayesha`s family to
fight her case, said he will decide in a few days on what
grounds he would proceed against the cricketer.
Pakistani television channels reported that Ayesha`s
family had sent Shoaib a legal notice but Hassan said he was
not aware of this.
In his statement, Shoaib said Ayesha had first started
calling him when he was in Sharjah with the Pakistan cricket
team in 2001.
"On the phone she introduced herself as my fan. She said
she was living in Saudi Arabia. Gradually, we started speaking
everyday. Naturally I wanted to meet her. Every time I brought
up the topic of meeting she would send me a bunch of
photographs. I was made to believe that the girl in the
photograph was the one I was speaking to," he said.
Shoaib admitted that through the frequent telephonic
conversations, he had become close to Ayesha.
The cricketer said in 2002 he had come to Hyderabad
specifically to meet Ayesha.
"Just before I left Pakistan she told me she had to rush
to Saudi Arabia on urgent work and her cousin Reema and Maha
apa (older sister) would take me around. I waited in Hyderabad
for five days hoping she would return.
"I finally asked her family where she was and they said
that in the last year, she had put on a lot of weight because
of which she didn`t want to meet me until she could shed some
of that. I told them I have photographs of her and she was not
fat but they told me those were older photographs," he said.
Shoaib, wearing blue jeans and T-shirt, looked flustered
as the media shot one question after another. He waved a copy
in his statement while giving instructions for distributing it
to the waiting media.
The cricketer said that Ayesha was keen that the two get
married.
"She had been talking about it for sometime saying we
would only meet at our `shaadi` (marriage). In 2002, she told
me that people in Hyderabad were talking about our
relationship and it was putting her parents in an embarrassing
position. She also told me she was feeling insecure. She
wanted us to have a telephone `nikah` to stop the talk. I knew
my parents would not agree to a telephone `nikah`. They wanted
to celebrate my wedding and so did I," he said.
Shoaib said he too wanted to marry Ayesha. "I was 20
years then. There was a lot of pressure on me from Ayesha. I
called her from a friend`s shop in June 2002 and I got a
`nikahnama`, signed it, thinking the girl I was marrying was
then one in the photograph. I was not happy doing this because
I had not told my parents and was emotionally forced to do
it."
PTI
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