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Divers Search for Muslim Girls Presumed Drowned off N.Y. Coast
WASHINGTON, July 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The two-day search continued on Wednesday morning for two Muslim girls who vanished into the sea early Monday morning. The girls were pulled in by a deadly current off the New York coast as their relatives watched helplessly from the beach, newspapers reported.
The body of a third girl, the cousin of the two missing girls, was recovered the same morning. Rahela Begum, 13, was laid to rest Tuesday evening in a traditional Islamic funeral attended by several hundred men, The New York Times reported.
Sisters Jubeda Ahmed, 16, and Shajeda Ahmed, 12, were wading in knee-deep water at Rockaway Beach in Queens with their cousin Rahela when the three were swept suddenly out to sea by a powerful riptide in the Rockaway Inlet, The New York Daily News reported.
"It happened so quickly," their 12-year-old cousin Zeeshan Akbar told news agencies. "Two seconds, and they were way out."
The girls had arrived at the beach for a day of fishing with their uncle, Mohammed Fahrul Islam, and other cousins, at around 9:00 a.m., an hour before lifeguards came on duty, The New York Post said.
The three girls - all straight-A students from Paterson, N.J. - and another cousin, 11-year-old Rizwan Islam, had gone out into the water even though their uncle had just told them to get out, the Post reported.
Islam was preparing fishing rods on the beach when the swift current started dragging the girls into the middle of East Rockaway Inlet, and he could only watch as the children struggled to stay above water, the Daily News said.
"I just turned my head for a second," Islam was quoted as saying. "By the time I got there, it was too late."
Their young cousin, Rizwan, managed to escape the riptide, scramble out of the water and scream for help, but the girls were trapped by the current, the Daily News said.
Authorities said Islam, shouting for help along with nearby fishermen, ran to a pay phone and dialed 911 at 9:19 a.m., the Post said.
Rahela was pulled out of the water by Officer Peter Fehn of the 101st Precinct, who jumped into the water fully uniformed, the Post said. She surfaced four blocks east of where she had been swept away, but she did not survive her ordeal, and was pronounced dead at St. John's Episcopal Hospital at 10:15 a.m., the Times reported.
Her two cousins, however, remained missing and are presumed dead. Coast Guard cutters and police divers searched for their bodies until dusk, resuming their search on Tuesday at 9:00 a.m., the Daily News said. The Tuesday search yielded no clues, and rescue workers continued Wednesday as relatives came to thank and encourage them and to pray at the spot where the girls were swept away, the Times said.
Shajeda and Jubeda's grieving father, Ansar Ahmed, tried to take solace in his faith in God.
"I have faith in Allah. Allah gave me my kids. He can take them away," the Post quoted him as saying.
The Daily News said that Ahmed - the founder and past president of the Paterson-based Islamic Federation of New Jersey - and his wife are holding out hope "that maybe our daughters are coming back.
"But if they have passed away," Ahmed said, fighting back tears outside his home Monday night, "I know Allah has them."
All three were remembered as hardworking but playful girls whose Islamic faith was a guiding force in their lives, the Times reported, and Ahmed said that both devoted time to their five daily prayers and to memorizing parts of the Qur'an. A young cousin was quoted in the Times as saying, "They were both smart, intelligent and beautiful." Jubeda, who enjoyed computers, would have started her junior year at John F. Kennedy High School in Paterson,
The Daily News said.
The Daily News quoted her uncle Akkas Ali, 36, as saying, "She was the heart of the family. "The way she spoke, she could calm anyone down."
Shajeda, who enjoyed hip-hop and Indian music, was going into eighth grade at Public School 5 where her cousin Rahela had just finished. Rahela was headed for JFK high school this fall, the Daily News said.
Rahela's funeral prayer was held Tuesday evening at Jalalabad Jam E Mosque in Paterson, after the women of the family had washed her body. Then, the men drove the pine coffin bearing her body to a section of the Laurel Grove Cemetery that is reserved for Muslims, the Times said.
Rahela was born in Bangladesh, where most of her extended family came from over the past 25 years, but came to New York when she was still an infant, the Times said. Described as shy and dutiful to her parents by family members, Rahela grew up with two sisters and six brothers; one of them, 31-year-old Fohkor Uddin, said as he sat on the front steps of the house his little sister grew up in, "Our lives are ruined now."
The uncle who took the children to the beach remains heartbroken, along with the rest of his family. "He's absolutely traumatized," Islam's brother-in-law, Shahid Akbar, was quoted in the Post as saying. "He regrets he took the children to the beach. He's blaming himself and wondering why he did it."
Mourning relatives have gathered for the past two days at the homes of Islam's brother, Asmat Ali, in Elmont and at the Ahmed sisters' home in Paterson as the search effort continued, the Post said.
Ali, 44, had prepared for a weekend cookout for his extended family by stocking up on pizza-flavored Pringle's potato chips for his nieces, the Daily News said
"That whole garage is filled with soda and junk food for them," Ali, his voice betraying his tears, was quoted in the Daily News as saying.
Coast Guard officials and neighbors said the inlet, where calm waters often conceal the violent current, was one of the most hazardous zones in the Rockaways, the Daily News reported.
According to the Times, three to five people lose their lives each year while swimming in dangerous stretches of public beaches in New York. Last year, a Manhattan woman and her 6-year-old daughter drowned in nearly the same spot as the Ahmed girls and their cousin. Even in the presence of lifeguards, locals avoid swimming in what they call "a death trap", the Times said.
"This [is] a very sad and tragic situation," New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who visited the scene, was quoted by the Daily News as saying. "The current here can be very, very dangerous. If you do not see a lifeguard, don't go into the water."
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