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FOR STUDENTS OF SOUTH ASIAN ORIGIN IN US OR CANADA The
story behind a small item in a Toronto newspaper Five Lines for a Dead Man You
might have missed this story. You might have given it a glance,
then turned the page. I wouldn’t blame you, especially since I’m guilty
of glazing over stories all the time. Maybe you’ll do what I had to
do. That is, you’ll go to the library and rummage through stacks of
old newspapers to find it. This particular story
can only be found in the Toronto Star newspaper for Wednesday,
March 3, 1999. You’ll have to flip to page two inside the Greater
Toronto Area section, and look under the heading, “Around the GTA.”
Even before I found it, I knew it would be in this section, since
I had seen similar types of stories there before. Only the Star
bothers publishing them. These stories are piled on top of one another,
quite like an index, or a phone book. In fact, they’re spilt up into
the different regions of Greater Toronto: Toronto, York, Halton, Peel
and Durham. There’s rarely a picture with the story, just a small
headline and some text. They are little bits of human suffering and
tragedy, typed and edited, spaced and kerned for public consumption.
They are the tales of people whom you will never know. This day happened to be a miserable one
for dog owners. “Man killed while walking dog,” said one headline;
another, “Man drowns trying to save dog.” Also, a woman died from
asphyxia. Police were looking for someone’s mother. They were also
looking for bank robbers who had killed a teller. Among all of this was the story I was looking
for: FROZEN
BODY FOUND *** The first time I met Amir was in early
May 1998. He and I were part of a small group of Muslim students on
a flight heading for New Delhi, India. For the next four months, our
group would travel along a prearranged route, wending our way up and
down India by train, then into Pakistan, and up towards the northerly
tips touching Afghanistan. We toured different cities, and lodged
in the local mosques and madressahs (religious schools). By virtue
of being Canadians, we were introduced to hundreds of people from
all walks of life: fakirs to politicians, warlords to police chiefs.
The purpose of our trip, though, was not to sightsee. Instead, our
physical journey through the Indian subcontinent was to serve as a
vessel for a larger, spiritual journey, wherein we were supposed to
arrive at a better understanding of Islam, and ourselves.
The shura,
or committee, of Medina Mosque, arranged the trip. The mosque itself
is unassuming, simply a large gray rectangle connected to a smaller
white one, with only a sign out on front with the mosque’s name. Situated
on the Danforth, it is easily lost in its surroundings of the lively
Greektown. But the mosque is well known in Toronto’s Muslim community
and to others worldwide for its designation as a markaz
(center) for tabligh (propagation).
Every Saturday evening, an ijtema
(gathering) for all of Toronto’s Muslim community is held there. Attendees
listen to a sermon, and then are asked to give their time to form
groups and visit Muslims in Toronto, the rest of Canada, America,
and elsewhere in the world. The purpose of these tabligh
groups is to remind other Muslims, and one’s own self, to adhere to
the Islamic faith and be moral. The elders, as the shura are called, schedule trips according to when they expect people
to have free time. Summer is an obvious target, and they try to corral
as many students as they can for kherooj
fi sabililah, “The path of Allah.” The four-month journey is pitched
to college and university students who have given time before. Many
students make the intention to go, but the committee is left to review
and choose who actually will. Once the elders have selected the party,
they book plane tickets and provide contacts in India and Pakistan
for the group to meet. A group member’s obligations are to pay the
$1,300 price for the airline ticket, get the Indian and Pakistani
travel visas, and provide for his own personal expenses. Also, it
is expected of each individual to be willing to endure living in harsh
conditions. Of course, I had no idea of what I was
getting into. For one thing, I hardly knew most of my traveling companions
at the outset of the trip. I met most of them for the first time at
the airport terminal. I only began pondering the ramifications of
this after our plane was in the air. A bunch of young Canadians, mostly
strangers to one another, banding together to navigate their way through
the villages, farms, cities, jungles, mountains, deserts, railways,
back alleys and highways of the subcontinent. What was I to expect
of these people, whom I had to trust in a foreign land? *** In
my first journal entry of the trip, I tried to sum up my traveling
group. “There are seven of us in this group [we were to rendezvous
in New Delhi with another group of eight who had gone a week before
us, and join them there] and it is nice to see a fair balance of personalities
within it,” I wrote. “The acknowledged leader is Faisal Khan, who
is both experienced and enthusiastic, though sometimes given to hyperbole.
Nabeel and Umer are guys like myself – interested and happy to be
here, but quiet in observation. Hafiz is on the same wavelength as
us, but more knowledgeable about Islam, just like Siddique, who went
to a religious school. Finally there is Amir, who is boy-scoutish
in his ways, but harmless. He is really affected in a gee-whiz fashion,
which is fine.” My thoughts about Amir were affected by
the fact that he sat next to me, and kept talking for a large portion
of the flight’s 20-hour duration. He was an aviation enthusiast, and
he was bubbling over with trivial information: He not only could name
any specific type of airplane and its manufacturer, but also which
airline flew which plane, and how much thrust an airplane engine could
create, and the rate of acceleration a plane needed to take off, and
so on. He wore me down, and I kept my responses to an uninterested
“Uh huh,” with the hope that he would get the point. But it was as
if I didn’t even have to be there. He would say something, then fall
silent for a moment, and then start again, as if answering someone
who had asked a question. He continued this until he became restless
and left his seat. Tired, I thought nothing of his behavior; little
did I know that it was in fact a telltale sign of a greater condition
that he lived with. I realized how important it was to understand
this condition, in order to understand Amir, only too, too late. The first thing that separated Amir from
the rest of our group was his age. While most of us were in our early
twenties, Amir was 30 years old. Yet instead of being more mature
and reserved than the rest of us, he acted like a naughty little boy,
childishly quizzical, curious, and at times boisterous. His appearance
didn’t match his youthful awe either, as he possessed an intimidating
physique that reminded me of a gruff linebacker. He stood at 6’, and
his chest was wide – enough that he had to squeeze through some of
the doors in India, which were made for much smaller people. He had
broad shoulders and thick arms, and he had butcher’s hands: square,
big, veined, and when balled into a fist, capped off with protruding
knuckles. When he stood straight, he would be poised like a soldier
at attention. But when he walked, he would be slightly hunched over,
with his forearms raised, as if he was ready for a fight. The most
striking thing about Amir was his beard. It was long – more than two
of his own fistfuls – and had the thickness of a lion’s mane. It grew
straight down his face, not outwards, and the hair was light brown
and stringy. When he spoke, it would shake with every word. I couldn’t
help but think “Moses” every time I looked at him. Amir, though, was the least concerned about
his appearance. He only cared for trains and nature, and occasionally
admitted that. In Toronto, his favorite haunt was the northern region
of the Rouge Valley in Scarborough. He had a particular spot where
he liked to stay, near the Canadian National railway tracks that run
through the Rouge. There he could be alone to enjoy two of the few
things he liked in this world. He felt easier around these things
than he did with people; whereas he had trouble talking about himself,
he could easily go on for hours about a specific type of caboose.
And he found it much easier to be calm and expressive towards animals.
During our trip, we often found him playing with a stray cat, trying
to feed it some milk, or following around the goats and cows that
roam freely in India’s streets. He would talk to the animals, nodding
as if they understood him. Sometimes, I wondered if he saw things
that we didn’t. Upon crossing into Pakistan, Amir became excited and
rejoiced: “It’s so much cleaner here, and we’re in a Muslim land,
God’s blessings are everywhere here! You can see it in the trees and
the fields, and in the animals. In India they were so sad, but here
they are so happy!” The rest of us, on the other hand, would
ridicule him for such actions, and he became the butt-end of many
of our jokes. His infatuation with animals gave me the idea for a
nickname, “Beastmaster,” from the title of a B-grade movie that had
a Conan-type hero who controlled all animals. Another name he garnered
was “The human encyclopedia,” in respect to his archival knowledge
of history and science. Annoyingly, he sprinkled his conversations
with trivial bits of information on whatever topic he spoke about,
in an effort to show just how knowledgeable he was. There were times
when I wished he would stop. Like the instance when we were spot-checked
by India’s elite fighting squad, the Indian Rangers. During that summer,
both India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests, and our group harbored
the fear that we could be thrown into jail as suspected spies. So,
this check was bad news. The Ranger demanded to see our passports.
He sat down and began scrutinizing them, one by one, and we all watched
him silently, afraid of what he might do. Except Amir, who sat down
beside the Ranger and began some small talk. “I’ve read all about
you guys,” he said. The Ranger didn’t reply or look at Amir, and his
face remained frozen in a snarl. “So I see you’re a sergeant, by that
badge you’re wearing, right?” he asked again. Still, the Ranger was
quiet, concentrating on our passports. Amir just smiled and started
talking, to my horror, about India’s army. By then, the rest of us
were shitting our pants. “Somebody shut him up!” I remember whispering. But to
our surprise, the Ranger put down the last passport and smiled at
Amir, complimented him on his knowledge of the Rangers, and let us
go. While he may have been uncannily calm in
that situation, there were other times when Amir would suddenly fly
into an uncontrollable rage. It was a terrifying aspect of his moodiness.
Thankfully, he never turned his fists on us, but when angered he would
raise his voice to such a degree that he sounded like a roaring bear.
Usually, his rage would be triggered in a confusing situation where
he felt overwhelmed, or by a lack of sleep. Our grueling, daylong
train ride from New Delhi to Lahore was an instance where the two
triggers were combined, and Amir lost it almost completely. We had
come to the station in the Indian city of Haryana. Up to that point,
we had the entire train car to ourselves, and we were all stretched
out on the wooden benches in the car. But as soon as the train came
to a dead halt, a wave of people noisily rushed inside the car, carrying
pots, pans, chickens, vegetables, screeching in tait Punjabi, and cramming into every space they could find – including
our reserved benches. It was useless to fight with them; they were
village people boarding without paying, and didn’t give a damn about
who sat where. But Amir tried, yelling at the top of his lungs at
everyone, even confronting a chai-wala.
“Jao!” Amir roared, ordering the man not
to pass through our now-congested aisle. But the thin, dark man, trembling
so much his plate of teacups clattered, defiantly said no, and pushed
by him. This infuriated Amir even more, and his screaming got on our
nerves too. “Oh Amir,” my friend Nabeel said in a sarcastic tone,
“Everyone’s got their own problems.” Amir was quiet for a moment,
then growled: “Ever seen a rubber chicken tied up like a pretzel?”
It was an obvious reference to Nabeel’s skinny stature. Nabeel took
the hint, and didn’t say anything to him after that. I unintentionally analyzed Amir to comprehend
why he could get so angry. Unintentionally, because what I really
wanted was to be safe around him. I sensed he nursed a greater failure
inside, of being unable to comprehend a world that had passed him
by. He was 30, but he had not finished college; he had trouble keeping
his mind on his work, and found it difficult to finish a semester.
I was told that he often started a school year, but then didn’t bother
to complete it. As a result, he was unemployed, and he lived with
his family. His mind was full of facts and trivia, but he couldn’t
put it all together to help himself in a practical fashion. He lacked
the social skills needed even to relate to people in simple things
like idle chat. Often, in trying to have a discussion with the rest
of us, he would end up saying something foolish that would make us
laugh. Embarrassed and not completely understanding his faux pas, he then would yell, argue or leave us to sit somewhere
alone. In a revealing moment, he provided me insight into his own
confusion. It was during a trip through the Indian state of Gujarat,
and I was bed-ridden, stricken with fever and dehydration. He sat
beside me to ask how I was doing, and then started talking about himself.
He told me how he had run away from home before, and had stayed with
a friend for over a month. Or how he would become so depressed that
he would lock himself inside a room and stay inside for days at a
time. When something got him angry, he told me, he didn’t know how
resolve his feelings. “Amir … that’s not good, man,” I told him, as
he offered me some pudding. He looked at me, and deadpanned: “I don’t
let my anger out because I’m afraid I’ll hurt someone.” *** The
difficulties Amir experienced were the result of his suffering from
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. The most commonly
accepted cause for ADHD is that there is some damage or malfunctioning
of the person’s brain and central nervous system. The damage is minor,
as the person’s body can still function normally. What an ADHD sufferer
experiences apart from everyone else is either symptomatic inattentiveness,
impulsiveness, hyperactivity, or all three combined. As a result,
the ADHD sufferer can develop a variety of behavioral difficulties,
such as being unable to sit still or stay focused on tasks. He also
can become irritated easily, and often talks excessively or acts immaturely.
In Amir’s case, he experienced all three
symptoms, and displayed each of those difficulties. He had been getting
treatment for ADHD since he was 15. The last drugs he was prescribed
were clonazepan and amitryptaline, drugs used to stimulate the brain’s
neurotransmitters, morepinephrine or dopamine. The drugs work by either
changing a transmitter’s rate of release or absorption, or by affecting
the brain’s sensitivity to them. These changes help the person gain
control of his behavior, making him more calm and focused. Most of my group, including myself, didn’t
know at that time how Amir could be so socially inept and immature.
In the crude reasoning of young men, we figured Amir just needed to
get laid. Some pussy would make him relax, we surmised. But Amir never
had a girlfriend, and his only dealings with women were with his sister
and mother. We bugged him about why he wasn’t married, and he didn’t
like that. In fact, he dismissed all women as evil, and would feel
bashful at any type of discussion that involved them, especially regarding
sex. When I asked him why he felt that way, he would speak harshly
of women, saying they corrupted men, before eventually getting into
the subject of his mother. She was a domineering woman who was constantly
complaining about him, always telling him to do something with his
life, he said. All she did was argue with him, he said, and there
had come times when they weren’t even talking to each other for months.
Amir’s complaints were about little things, such as how his mom didn’t
like his magazine collection, or how she often talked in a sarcastic
manner about him. Though I tried to sympathize with Amir,
I understood why his mother would be so frustrated with him. What
he only saw was her nagging, but it was obvious she was concerned
about her son’s lack of promise. It wasn’t his fault, but he was so
much like a child, reluctant to take charge of his life, blaming others
instead. I distinctly remember observing him, and wondering to myself,
‘How is he going to survive in this world?’ But Amir left his life
in the hands of God, and impressed me with the strength of his faith.
He was more worried about the condition of his soul. Life, for him,
was obeying Allah’s commandments, and being good in the eyes of the
divine. That was his vision of true success. While we were in Surat,
a coastal city in the southwest of India, we came upon an old man
lying in the street, gaunt and breathing raggedly. In India, this
is a sight you become accustomed to, and though we felt pity for the
man, we walked on. Hours later, we returned the same way, and found
the man now dead, covered in a shroud. This touched Amir deeply, and
he brought it up later in the evening. “He had no friends, no family,”
he said. “No one to care if he died believing in Allah.” *** The last time I saw Amir was in Pakistan.
The group was splitting up, as everyone wanted to see their relatives.
Amir and I were among the last few members of the group staying at
a large Muslim seminary outside the city of Lahore, in the farming
district called Raiwind. Named after the area itself, the seminary
is the tabligh markaz for
the entire world. When Raiwind holds its annual ijtema, it attracts close to 3 million people – attendance big enough
to rival that of the Hajj in Mecca. It is an ordinary sight for locals
to see busloads of men, carrying bedrolls, from around the world arriving
daily at the dusty roadside outside the seminary. It is said that
when Raiwind’s founder, Hajji Abdul Wahab Sahib, crossed over from
India into Pakistan by train, he was told by the unseen that he was
to stop at this location, which was at that time an empty, barren
field, and begin the tabligh effort. The train station where
he got off 50 years ago has not changed since, retaining such relics
like a Ladies-only waiting room, complete with a portrait of Queen
Victoria overlooking deep brown oak benches. But the patch of ground
where he went has become a sprawling, walled-in city. It is hidden from the naked eye, as shops
surround its perimeter. The entrance is squeezed between shops: two
large iron-grill gates, painted baby blue, close off the main entranceway.
The entrance is wide enough for buses to pass through, and on either
end sit sentries, armed with large bamboo sticks. After passing the
gates, one travels down a long corridor before reaching the main compound.
Inside, it takes almost 30 minutes to walk along the circular perimeter.
There are four large buildings, seven smaller ones, an open-air prayer
square, a market, two dining halls, a bookstore, numerous rows of
latrines, shower stalls, and pools of water for ablution. And there
is constant construction, as the seminary is always adding new elements
to its compound. The entire upkeep of this seminary is done by its
students, teachers, and by local volunteers. Here, Amir was happy. Life in this huge
seminary goes according to a set schedule, with no deviation. The
day runs along a course of sermons, prayers, learning groups and meals.
All living quarters are bare. Everyone sleeps on the same straw mats
that line the brick floors. There is no furniture, no phones, not
even paint on the walls. Our group stayed in a separate building for
foreigners, connected by a bridge to another building that housed
our own showers and latrines. Guards were everywhere, on 24-hour watch.
They would keep locals from coming inside our section to prevent robberies.
In this dusty, austere environment, Amir found order and peace. This
was because life there was exactly how he thought it should be: strictly
designed around worshipping Allah. In my research, I learned that
in such an environment, a person with ADHD would be able to excel,
since all the distractions have been removed, allowing them to focus.
It certainly seemed so in Amir’s case. He never once got angry while
he was there, and volunteered for different duties, such as security
and visitor reception. I never witnessed him so vital or confident,
and in my last afternoon at Raiwind, I told him so. “I wish I could
stay here for the rest of my life,” he told me. But in fact, he had
plans to go back to India and get married to his cousin, whom he met
earlier when we were in India. He reasoned that he had put marriage
off for too long, and it was the right thing to do, as marriage in
Islam is considered ‘half of one’s faith.’ Our discussion turned to
our families, and he said that when he went home, he was going to
make up with his mother, and learn to be good to her. I apologized
to him for any time where I was mean to him, and I asked for his forgiveness
if I had done anything wrong to him. He was gracious, saying I never
had done anything. We hugged each other. I was very happy for him.
He was going to lead a new life from now on. *** When we returned to Canada in September,
everyone in our group tried to keep in touch by showing up at the
Saturday ijtema at Medina Mosque. But I never saw Amir there.
I wondered what happened, why I hadn’t seen him. Nobody else did,
and we guessed that he was busy. I worried that he might be going
through problems at home again. I thought about calling him, but lazily,
I didn’t. To this day, I wonder how much of a difference it would
have made. On the evening of November 22, 1998, police
officers were summoned to the Quereshi home at 122 John Tabor Trail,
in response to a domestic dispute. Amir was arguing with his mother,
who was angry with him for taking too much of the medications he had
for ADHD. His father explained that while studying for an upcoming
exam, Amir had not slept for an entire day. Desperately tired and
irritated, he took all the remaining pills of clonazepan and amitryptaline,
as many as six in total, just so he could go to sleep. But his mother
awoke him when she found out what he had done, and he became angry
and disoriented. The family called 911, fearing Amir had poisoned
himself. The police were the first to arrive, and an ambulance was
already dispatched and on its way to the house. But Amir, scared and
confused, did not want to go with the police to the hospital. “You’re
going to pump my stomach with drugs!” he yelled. He began fighting
with the officers, who wrestled him to the floor. But his father stopped
the struggle, saying there was no need for violence. They let go of
Amir, and he bolted for the door, wearing nothing but his kurta
shalwar (pajamas). The officers chased after him, found him outside
and tried to apprehend him, but again he managed to get away. Midnight passed. Amir hadn’t returned.
At 3 a.m., his mother called the police to organize a search. His
family decided not to get worried – Amir was in the habit of leaving
by himself for a walk to cool down. He’d always come back. But it
was cold outside, and he barely had anything on. And the police checked
with the Poison Control Center downtown. The amount of drugs he had
taken together were enough to induce a coma in a regular person. And
amitryptaline, taken in large quantities, could fatally disturb heart
rhythms. Amir needed medical attention quickly. The police reviewed his criminal record.
They checked with every hospital in the area for the admittance of
any ‘John Does’ – patients who refuse to give their names, or are
in a state where they are unable to identify themselves. A Metro Alert
was issued to all police divisions regarding his appearance, and the
police got a photo of him for their files. They then inspected his
room, the family house and the garage. He had left his wallet at home.
He couldn’t have gotten far now without being seen. It was daytime. Police began sweeping the area around Amir’s
home. They were at the Malvern Marketplace, talking to security guards,
advising them to keep an eye out for Amir. They went behind the plaza
and checked the bush there. They went to a bridge on Neilson Road
that spanned railroad tracks beneath. They searched through the Malvern
Woods before returning to his house. They found nothing. The police tried again the following day,
this time with the K-9 dog search unit. Again they went to the Malvern
Woods, and split up, searching the perimeter of the forest. They returned
to his house again, empty-handed. Police officers went to Seneca College,
where Amir had been studying, and advised the school that he was missing.
They went to several banks where he had accounts to see if he had
come to any of them. The police let the Toronto Transit Commission
know, so that if he were taking the subway or bus, they’d know. They
also contacted every hospital in the Markham – Stouffville area. If
Amir was to show up, they were to call police immediately. Meanwhile,
Amir’s father had been calling every mosque in Toronto, asking if
Amir had come there. He called the shura in Medina Mosque,
and let them know his son was gone. He called Amir’s friends, but
nobody had seen him. It was during this time that I learned
he was gone, through a friend. I called up Siddique, who was part
of our group, and was close to Amir. I could hear the depression in
Siddique’s voice. “How long has he been gone?” I asked. “A few days now,” Siddique said. “We’ve
been organizing searches, searching the Rouge Valley, looking for
him.” “I don’t understand it, why the heck would
he do this?” “Just make du’a (prayer) for him …” I stayed on the phone with Siddique after
this brief exchange for almost a minute, in awkward silence. I hadn’t
done anything to help, much less think about Amir. I was busy with
my internship at Reuters, and was missing the Saturday ijtema
as well. I didn’t know what else to say. Siddique picked up on this,
and quietly ended the phone call.
In a last-ditch effort, a mounted police
unit searched the northern region of Rouge Valley. Fifteen police
officers worked together, combing the area, but they were unsuccessful.
Four days had passed, and they still had no clue where he could be.
Finally, on November 26, 1998, police let the media know they were
searching for Amir, and released his photo. “I’m impressed by the work these officers
did to locate him,” Homicide Detective Sergeant Doug Grady said. “Everything
you can do to find a person has been done, and more. They treated
it with a sense of emergency.” My research had led me to Det. Grady’s
office, inside Toronto Police Headquarters downtown. Located on College
Street, just a few buildings down from Maple Leaf Gardens, it is a
brand-new pink marble fortress. The walls still shine, and its large
columns frame a walkway that always has officers and lawyers running
up and down its steps. After being cleared by the front desk, I took
the elevator five floors up, to the Homicide Squad’s offices. The
receptionist led me inside Det. Grady’s sparse, small office, where
I met him for the first time. I had spoken to him only on the phone
before. I had explained that I was Amir’s friend, and I wanted to
know what happened to him. He agreed to open Amir’s file, though I
wasn’t a family member. We shook hands and sat down. A paunchy, white-haired
man, dressed in gray slacks, white shirt and brownish tie, he fit
the image of a veteran homicide cop perfectly. Det. Grady explained that usually such
manhunts are reserved for children. A person would be expected to
either find his way home, or be able to survive on his own. The police
stopped actively searching for Amir, and months passed with no new
leads. “After you’ve done so much, the only thing you’re left with
is having to rely on the public to stumble across him,” Det. Grady
said. On March 2, 1999, a man took his dog for
an afternoon walk behind the shop where he worked at 50 Thornmill
Drive. He took the leash off his dog, and let it run. When he called
for his dog, it didn’t come back. He waited, called again, and then
followed the dog’s tracks to a little spot by a creek. His dog had sniffed out something, and
wasn’t leaving it. Curled up and covered in snow and ice from the
knees down was a body. There was an open tunnel close by, and overgrown
grass blades and garbage that hid the area surrounding it. At first, the man didn’t know what he was
looking at. As he went for a close look, it became apparent that he
was staring at a human corpse. There were clothes nearby, but they
had been ripped apart. The back, spine and rib cage were exposed,
and the body laid face down. There still was some flesh on the skull,
which was black. The man ran back to his store, and called 911. Police
and a coroner were called to the scene. “I’ve been on this job for 11 years, and
I can tell you that it’s the odor that stays with you,” Det. Grady
said. “Once you’ve been to so many crime scenes, you can’t judge what’s
the worst thing you’ve seen. But even after you’ve left a scene, you
can smell death on your clothes.” The area was closed off and was searched
for any evidence of foul play. Was anything moved, did anything on
the scene look staged, was there anything lying around that could
be used to kill? Nothing of the sort was found. An autopsy would have
to be performed to determine the cause of death. Because it was decomposed and fragile,
officers couldn’t just pick the body up. They needed the body to be
intact. So, they carefully shoved a thin piece of plywood into the
soil underneath the body’s resting place. Once steady, a second piece
of wood was shifted under it, and the body was lifted from the ground,
intact with the soil. It was important to keep the soil, Dr. William
Lucas, Ontario regional coroner, explained, because any fluids from
the body would have drained into the soil below, which could be analyzed.
This could tell investigators if the person died where they had been
found. Also, any larvae of bugs or maggots that had fed on the body
would be present in the ground around it. They could be used to determine
how long the body had been decomposing. Detectives collected three different pieces
of clothing from the body to use for identification. “Police do this
to protect family and friends of the person from trauma,” Dr. Lucas
said. “Bodies decompose in just a few days. In a week, a body’s features
become distorted, and they also become discolored. That’s not the
way to remember a relative or friend.” As before, it was near evening when the
police arrived at the Quereshi home. But this time, they had something
to show. It was the three pieces of clothes. Amir’s family identified
them as his. *** I learned about Amir’s fate from another
member of our group, Sabir. Sabir and I both attended Ryerson University,
and he approached the table where I was sat in the study hall underneath
the Business studies building. “Suleman, did you hear about Amir?” he
asked, casually. “They found his body somewhere in Scarborough. Decomposed.” I almost didn’t believe him. I knew Amir
had been missing for a long time, but I never thought that he could
be dead. He was so strong. I went to the mosque the same afternoon
to offer a prayer of forgiveness for Amir. I was upset at myself because
I wasn’t crying. During the trip, I felt I understood him better than
anyone else, and I always tried to comfort him. He trusted me enough
to tell me his problems, and respected the advice I gave him. We had
our arguments, but in our last meeting, we did forgive one another
for any wrongdoing. Now he was dead, and I couldn’t even shed a tear
for him. Did I even care about him at all? All those months he was
missing, and did I ever think about him, was I ever worried enough
to call his family? I sat alone in the mosque for a long time, questioning
myself, thinking about what I could have done for Amir. And how little
I actually did. I raised my hands, and remembering him, I asked Allah
to have mercy on his soul. The fact that he was gone finally sunk
into my heart, and I cried like a little boy. Upon hearing the news of the death of another
Muslim, you must recite a spoken prayer. It is Innalillahi wa innalillahi
rajioon - Surely, we are the servants of Allah, and to Him is
our final return. *** Muslims object to having autopsies performed
on their dead because they believe it interrupts the transition the
soul makes from the life of this world to the next. They also believe
that when a person dies, his body still has the faculties of feeling,
sight and hearing; these are the channels to the soul, and the body
is only a soul’s vessel, a means to carry out actions in the physical
plane. When someone dies, Muslims believe his soul remains in his
body, but the body no longer responds to the soul. So doing an autopsy
on a body would be extremely painful to the deceased, a punishment
in itself. Yet, because the police required an autopsy, Amir’s family
gave them permission to perform one. Det. Grady said that in a year Toronto
police might see three or four cases like this, where a decomposed,
unidentified body is found. Because the police don’t know if what
they have on their hands is a murder, a suicide or accident, they
call it a “suspicious death.” That leaves the door open on the case
until investigators have identified the body, and are sure of the
nature of death. Amir’s body was held for five days by morgue
authorities before being released. Dr. Lucas said the holding time
was lengthened by the fact that the body would have to thaw before
an autopsy took place. Regularly in an autopsy, pathologists will
first examine a body from the outside, and then dissect it piece by
piece. The body is opened using a Y-shaped incision from the shoulders
to mid-chest and down to the pubic region. If the head is to be opened,
the pathologist makes a second incision across the forehead. Then
the body’s organs and intestines are taken out, and examined for disease
and infection. Because
Amir had decomposed so much, Dr. Lucas suggested that there might
have been too little for a pathologist to comment on. If anything,
Amir’s blood, urine, bile, or even the fluid of his eye would be sent
for a chemical analysis to study the affect of those drugs present
in his body. As the drug amitryptaline may have caused irregular heartbeats,
blood from his heart would have been extracted for tests. His brain
may also have been examined, since he suffered from ADHD. The actual
autopsy report is considered confidential information, open to Amir’s
relatives only. The
community was rife with rumors that Amir had committed suicide. If
they were true, then according to Islamic belief Amir was damned to
Hell. The human body in Islam is seen as a trust from Allah that a
person must not abuse. Suicide is considered the greatest abuse of
this trust, and challenges the belief that only Allah decides when
a person will die. The punishment for suicide in Islam is that the
person will be made to re-experience the way in which they committed
suicide for eternity. Both
Dr. Lucas and Det. Grady felt that Amir did not commit suicide, but
instead died from either hypothermia, the high dosage of drugs he
had foolishly administered himself, or both. “This
was a case of what I call death by misadventure,” Det. Grady said.
“This was somebody in an agitated state, who did take an overdose
of drugs, but then wandered off alone into the elements unprepared.
It looks like a sudden death, with no premeditation on his part to
kill himself.” Dr.
Lucas said that judging from the fetal position in which Amir was
found, he might have fallen unconscious from the drugs that he ingested,
possibly into a coma. In such a defenseless state, lying in a forest,
it would only be a few hours before hypothermia set in. It would have
been a painless demise. When one is freezing to death, they’re not
even aware that they are dying. The body slowly starts going numb
and the victim begins to feel tired and shivers. His body is taking
up all his energy just trying to stay warm. The victim usually drops
from exhaustion, and curls up on the ground, where it is actually
colder than if he kept standing, braving the cold air. The body takes
the temperature of the ground; so, if the ground is Zero degrees,
the victim’s body temperature also becomes Zero degrees. After unconsciousness,
death comes quickly. “If
he had been found, he could’ve been treated for his drug overdose,”
Dr. Lucas said, sighing. *** Medina
Mosque was once again full with people from all over Toronto. But
this time, no one was being asked to make an intention for kherooj,
and no trips were being planned. Instead we had come to give our final
respects to a man we had all known, but never understood. The
Muslim janaaza (funeral) is a simple, somber ceremony. There
are no eulogies, no flowers, and no singing choir. The body is first
brought into the mosque in its coffin, on the shoulders of whoever
gets under it. It is passed on, so that everyone gets a chance to
carry it; to carry the coffin of a dead person is a virtuous act.
It is then placed at the front of the congregation, and opened for
people to view the deceased. In this case, though, Amir’s coffin remained
sealed. The coffin itself is a simple box of beige plywood planks,
with no inscriptions or designs on the outside, and no cushions or
fabric inside. The
congregation then forms lines facing Mecca and stand together tightly,
shoulder to shoulder, with only a small space between the lines. There
is no bowing, or semi-bowing, as usually happened in Muslim prayer.
The Imam of the mosque simply makes four separate shouts of “Allahu
Akbar” (God is great!). With the first shout, one raises his hands
up to his ears, his palms facing outward towards Mecca, and then rests
them on his navel. He does not raise his hands again, but a different
prayer is recited for each of the first three shouts, and on the fourth
shout, the funeral prayer is concluded with a turning of the head
to the right, and then to the left, saying “As-salaamu-alaikum
wa-rahmatullah” (May Allah send peace and blessings upon you). The
plot was already dug up by the time we reached the Muslim burial ground
in Ajax, half an hour away from Toronto. Set deep inside the rural
background of weathered silos and long-forgotten barns, the graveyard
holds the plots of Muslims right at its front. The gravediggers had
parked their bulldozer at a respectful distance, and the rectangular
cut into the ground was empty, accompanied by its excavated heap of
soil. It
had snowed the night before, and it covered the ground in a fine layer.
On this afternoon the sun hung in the sky alone. It gave the ground
a pure glow, as the glare that rose up from the snow crystals bothered
the eyesight. The wind blew quickly, howling over the lonely fields,
whipping frozen mist across the face. We huddled in silence around
the plot for the coffin to arrive. I looked down. The bottom of the
pit swirled with muddy water, its sides jagged from the shovel’s teeth,
O Allah, forgive among us those who are
living and who are Dead, those who are young and are old,
those who are males And females and those who are present and
are absent. O Allah. Whomever you give life to, let him live
upon Islam, and Whoever you cause to die, let him die upon
the faith (of Islam). O Allah, do not deprive us of his reward
(which You give him) And do not cause us to go astray after
him (his death). Inside, I was met with a blast of cool
air and a sweet, flowery scent, so distinct that even after I awoke,
I could remember how it felt. Turning to my right, I saw a long hall,
its floor laid with grayish-green marble. Running towards it were
women and girls covered in chadors, the flowing, shapeless
robes common in Iran, but in fantastic hues of red, blue, yellow,
purple, orange. |
