The Home in India Stands Silent as 18 members – 3 Generations of One Family – Perish in Saudi Tragedy

Hyderabad: The house in Hyderabad’s Vidyanagar in India stood shut and silent. A locked doorway that now represents an unfathomable void. Behind those closed doors once lived three generations of the Shaik family, a bustling household that has now been wiped out in the catastrophic Saudi Arabia bus accident that claimed 45 lives. Eighteen of those – nine adults and nine children – were from this one family alone.

What began as an Umrah pilgrimage turned into an unspeakable tragedy. Naseeruddin Shaik, 70, a retired Indian Railways employee, had left for Saudi Arabia on November 9 with his wife Akhter Begum (62), their son Salauddin (42), daughters Amina (44), Rizwana (38) and Shabana (40), their spouses and their children. Only one son, who lives in the US, couldn’t join the trip, according to Indian media reports.

As word of the accident spread, grief-stricken relatives gathered outside the locked home in Vidyanagar, unable to comprehend how an entire lineage had vanished overnight. The mourning of the friends and relatives who knew the family for decades echoed through the neighbourhood.

The darkened, unopened house stands as a stark symbol of a family erased; three generations lost in a single, devastating moment.

Photo: PTI