Category Archives: Positive Stories after Trauma/Distress (wef. February 10th, 2025)

Dr. Roshan Jahan Sheikh: Turning Adversity into an Extraordinary Journey of Courage

Amazing Feats, Bravery Awards, Citations, Commendations etc (since April 14th, 2024), Community Involvement / Social Issues, Positive Stories after Trauma/Distress (wef. February 10th, 2025), Science & Technology, Women/Girls(since May26-2021), , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA:

Dr.Roshan Shaikh’s extraordinary journey from double amputation,a financially struggling family to becoming an MBBS doctor, MD Pathologist, motivational speaker, award-winning personality.

Dr. Roshan  Sheikh is now the eminent name of the field of education and source of inspiration for thousands of students.She specially invited to Moulana Ajmal’s education institute,Assam, Shaheen group of Institutions, Bidar, Karnataka, Anjuman E Islam Mumbai ,and other dozens of prestigious institutes of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

Born in Mumbai to a family where her father worked as a vegetable vendor, Roshan Jahan dreamed of becoming a doctor. Her life changed dramatically when she was in XIth grade a tragic train accident resulted in the amputation of both her legs. She remained bedridden for more than three months, but the tragedy could not break her determination.

Her mother, who had studied only up to the fourth standard, became her strongest pillar of support. She took Roshan to school in a wheelchair whenever practical classes and examinations required her presence. Despite severe physical and financial difficulties, Roshan completed Class 12 with impressive marks and secured third rank in the handicapped category in the state medical entrance examination.

However, her struggle continued when she was denied medical admission because her disability was assessed at 96 percent, while prevailing regulations restricted admission for candidates considered more than 70 per cent disabled. Determined to realise her dream, she approached the Bombay High Court in 2011 with the support of orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Sanjay Kotharia and advocate P.B. Patil, who fought her case without charging a fee. The court recognised her capabilities and allowed her to pursue medical education.

Roshan subsequently secured admission to KEM Medical College, Mumbai. Medical education was challenging, involving practical work, emergencies, movement between buildings and long working hours. Yet she completed her MBBS in 2016 and later earned her MD in Pathology in 2021 from Mumbai.

Several people also supported her during this journey. Congress MLA Amin Patel helped finance her medical education, while BJP MP Kirit Somaiya supported her when she faced difficulties in pursuing postgraduate studies. Her case also contributed to changes that enabled her to continue her higher medical education.

After completing her MD, Roshan worked as a Consultant Pathologist and Cytopathologist. On 28 October 2022 she married to Mumbai based Buisnessman Salman Abdul Latif and became mother in 2026.

She also became a motivational speaker, travelling to educational institutions in Maharashtra, Karnataka and other states and inspiring thousands of students with her life story. She is currently at home, taking care of her three-month-old baby girl, while remaining socially active and sharing her old and new posts and videos.

Her achievements have earned her several prestigious honours, including the Hindustan Times Women of the Year Award (2018) at the national level. Other recognitions include the Shoorveer Award, Bharat Prerna Award, Award for Bravery and Courage from the Bombay High Court, Inqulab Award, Galli News Griffin Award for Women Impact, Cavinkare Ability Award, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Award, Sahas Ability Award, Microsoft Bravery Award and SABAL Award from Tata, among others.

Her personal life has also entered a new chapter. Around three years ago, she married Mumbai-based handsome businessman Salman Abdul Latif. Despite her high level of disability, she successfully went through pregnancy and became a mother to a baby girl three months ago.

Dr. Roshan Jahan Sheikh has transformed adversity into purpose. Her life stands as a powerful message that physical limitations need not limit human dreams, and that courage, education and determination can turn seemingly impossible goals into reality.

Speaking to Muslim Mirror Roshan says, “Life may knock you down and may even try to break you, but getting back on your feet is in your hands. If I can overcome such a great storm and become an MD doctor, then you too can fulfil every dream you have. Keep faith in Allah and move forward,” Dr. Roshan Jahan Jawwad Sheikh said.

She further advised people not to dwell on what they have lost or what they do not have. “Do not focus on what is gone or what you do not have. Instead, put all your strength into what remains and into what you can become,” she said.

source: http://www.muslimmirror.com / Muslim Mirror / Home> Positive Story / by Imran Inamdar / September 08th, 2026

‘I could not call myself an engineer’: How Maharashtra’s aborted Muslim quota left a Beed man without his degree for nine years

Education, Positive Stories after Trauma/Distress (wef. February 10th, 2025), , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Jawalben Village (Beed District), MAHARASHTRA :

Farukh Ilahi Sayyad completed his engineering course in 2017. It took a Bombay High Court order in 2025 for the University of Mumbai to hand him his degree, trapped as he was between a lapsed Muslim quota, a change in government and a caste validity certificate no one would issue.

Farukh Ilahi Sayyad

For nine years, Farukh Ilahi Sayyad carried the qualifications of an engineer without the degree certificate to prove it.

A beneficiary and later a casualty of Maharashtra’s brief and controversial 5 per cent Muslim reservation policy, the 33-year-old from Beed spent nearly a decade caught between changing governments, a lapsed ordinance and bureaucratic deadlock before the Bombay High Court finally directed the University of Mumbai to release his engineering degree earlier this month.

Sayyad’s ordeal traces back to 2014, when the then Congress-NCP government announced 16 per cent reservation for Marathas and 5 per cent reservation for Muslims in government jobs and educational institutions ahead of the Assembly elections. To navigate constitutional restrictions against religion-based reservation, the quota was structured under a Special Backward Category-A (SBC-A), covering around 50 socially and educationally backward Muslim communities.

It was under this category that Sayyad, then 21 years old and a resident of Jawalben village in Beed district, secured admission to Finolex Academy of Management and Technology in Ratnagiri for a degree course in electrical engineering.

The youngest son of a daily wage worker in a family with little formal education, Sayyad completed Diploma in Electrical Engineering with 72.71 per cent marks, making him eligible for direct second-year admission to an engineering course.

“With the reservations announced, I was initially allotted a Pune-based college based on the marks. However, I opted out as the fees of Rs 1.13 lakh was too high. In the second round of selection, I was allotted a seat in the Finolex Academy of Management and Technology in Ratnagiri under the SBCA category and I accepted as the fee was Rs 63,000 per year and affordable,” Farukh Ilahi Sayyad told The Indian Express from Dubai.

In July 2014, he obtained a caste certificate confirming his SBC-A status. But when he applied for a caste validity certificate in February 2015, the political and legal landscape had changed.

The BJP-led government had come to power in Maharashtra in October 2014, and the reservation policy was challenged before the Bombay High Court. In November that year, the High Court struck down Maratha reservation but permitted 5 per cent reservation for Muslims in educational institutions, observing that denying such reservation would impede efforts to bring Muslim youth into the mainstream of secular education.

However, the ordinance was never converted into a permanent law and lapsed in December 2014 after the new government chose not to preserve the Muslim quota framework.

Soon after, Sayyad said the state scrutiny committee informed him that it could not issue a caste validity certificate because the reservation itself was no longer in force.

“I made various representations to authorities but to no avail. I was told that I would be able to continue my studies if I paid the fees that was being charged for open category students. I agreed, hoping that the issue would get resolved,” he said.

Although he completed the course in 2017, the college and the University of Mumbai withheld his final-year marksheet and engineering degree because he had not submitted the caste validity certificate.

Unable to resolve the issue, Sayyad moved to Kuwait in 2018 on the basis of his diploma qualification before finding work in Dubai. He returned briefly during the Covid pandemic.

“What pinched me is that in spite of being an engineer, I could not call myself one or get the desired jobs because I did not hold a physical copy of my degree,” Sayyad said. “With companies tightening norms on whom they hired for engineering jobs, I felt it was time that I took from the state what was rightfully mine.”

Earlier this year, during a visit to India, Sayyad approached advocates Amol Ghuge and Gaurav Ugale and moved the Bombay High Court seeking release of his degree and results.

“Our contention before the court was that repeal of a law does not automatically extinguish rights, liabilities or proceedings that arose under it. We argued that withholding our client’s degree was preventing him from practising his profession and infringing upon his right to livelihood. We also submitted that the petitioner could not be penalised for a subsequent shift in the government’s legal position and that education already imparted ought to be protected,” advocate said.

The state argued that since the 2014 ordinance had lapsed without becoming law, all related government resolutions and circulars automatically stood cancelled.

Earlier this year, the Maharashtra government formally scrapped a decade-old resolution linked to the Congress-NCP government’s 2014 Muslim reservation policy in education, triggering a political sparring match between the ruling BJP and the Opposition. While Opposition parties termed the move anti-minority, the BJP dismissed the quota as an unimplemented “appeasement” measure announced ahead of elections.

In its May 6 verdict, the Bombay High Court directed the University of Mumbai to release Sayyad’s eighth semester results along with his original degree, passing and leaving certificates after recording his statement that he was not seeking the benefit of the 5 per cent reservation under the February 17, 2026 Government Resolution, and had already paid fees applicable to the open category. Sayyad also undertook to pay any additional fees, if required. Accepting the statement, the bench of Justices Advait M Sethna and R I Chagla disposed of the petition.

“It is a huge relief,” Sayyad said. “It has been a harrowing nine years trying to get hold of my degree. I do not know how many other Muslim students got admission during this four-month window and are facing similar problems. I feel strange fighting for a right that was granted by the state. In spite of not doing anything illegal, I had to suffer for nine years.”

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> News> Cities> Mumbai / by Zeeshan Shaikh / May 19th, 2026

From Terror Suspect to Auto Driver: Faheem Ansari’s Long Fight for Dignity After Acquittal

Positive Stories after Trauma/Distress (wef. February 10th, 2025)

Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA :

Mumbai :

Eighteen years after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks shook the nation, the wounds of that night remain open for many. Families who lost loved ones still carry grief, survivors still live with pain, and for some who were falsely accused, the suffering did not end with acquittal, it followed them home.

Faheem Ansari is one such person.

Once accused of giving a map to the attackers in the Mumbai terror case, Ansari today earns his living by driving an auto in Mumbra. The charges that once painted him as a traitor were later thrown out, yet the damage to his life, family, and reputation remains deep.

“I cannot forget the wounds caused by false accusations and long imprisonment,” Ansari told Clarion India. “The support my family gave me after my release has given me the desire to live again.”

After the arrest of Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone gunman caught alive in the 26/11 attacks, investigators named two Indian citizens — Faheem Arshad Ansari and Mohammad Yousuf Ansari — alleging they had helped plan the assault. The claims were sweeping and serious, suggesting local support for a Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba plot.

But facts later told a different story.

Faheem Ansari and another accused, Sabahuddin, had already been jailed in connection with the 2007 CRPF camp attack in Kanpur. They were in custody in Kanpur at the time of the Mumbai attacks, making their alleged role impossible.

Despite this, Ansari spent more than ten years in prison before being cleared of the Mumbai terror charges. By the time of his release, life outside had changed beyond recognition.

Today, Ansari lives quietly with his wife in Mumbra. His daughter is married and settled. There are no grand plans — only the daily need to earn, eat, and survive with dignity. Driving a rickshaw is now his means of lawful livelihood.

“I forget everything when I work,” he said. “I only think about feeding my wife and living with self-respect.”

Even this simple work has challenges. Ansari has petitioned the Bombay High Court for a police clearance certificate, necessary to operate an Auto in areas beyond Mumbra. Without it, he cannot obtain the required permit from the Regional Transport Office, limiting his earnings.

“Until the police give me clearance, I cannot increase my earning,” he said. “I have no other option.” The High Court has concluded hearings and reserved its verdict.

The years behind bars broke more than his body. They shook his spirit and strained his family ties.

“There is no part of prison life that is free of suffering,” he said. “I lost hope. I even told my wife she should move on with her life.”

She refused. “She stood with me at every step,” Ansari said. “She gave me courage to wait until the end.” His parents and siblings were his quiet strength. “They never let me feel alone,” he said.

On November 26, 2008, ten alleged Pakistani terrorists entered Mumbai by sea and carried out coordinated attacks at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, the Taj Palace Hotel, Trident Hotel, Leopold Café, Chabad House, and Cama Hospital. The assault left 166 people dead, including foreign nationals, and injured more than 300. Sixteen Mumbai Police officers, including ATS chief Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte, and Vijay Salaskar, were killed. Kasab was captured alive by officer Tukaram Omble, who lost his life in the act.

No one disputes the horror of that night. But cases like Ansari’s raise uncomfortable questions about investigations and who bears the cost when the system fails.

Human rights groups note that poor Muslims are often the first to be arrested in terror cases, held for years, and quietly released when evidence fails — without apology, support, or repair for the lives broken by false charges.

Ansari does not speak in anger, only in tired honesty. “If I keep crying about what was done to us, it will hurt me again,” he said. “I just want to live.”

For him, justice now means something simple: the right to work, the right to move freely, and the right to be seen not as a past accusation, but as a man trying to rebuild a life stolen by mistakes he did not commit.

source: http://www.clarionindia.net / Clarion India / Home> Editor’s Pick> India / by Team Clarion / January 23rd, 2026