Picture(s) of the Day: Maashallah

Now you know why the world price of gold has been going up!

This couple celebrated their first wedding anniversary last week. So, I guess it is time to congratulate them by putting this picture up.

I have been looking for this since I started ATP and finally found it on Asma’s highly recommended blog Reflection of my Soul.

I first thought of turning it into an ATP photo-quiz about who this was, or better still if you could guess just how much gold is laden on this poor girl and how can she still smile; or, for that matter, even stand straight with all this metal on her.

Both kids boast very famous fathers; one in Pakistan one in India. So, you want to find out who this is? OK, read on…

Lets cut the suspense. The guy (and he is really not who this photograph is about) is Junaid, son of famous Pakistan cricketer Javed Miandad. The girl is Mahrookh, daughter of wanted Indian underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. Yep, you read it right.

They got married in Dubai last year in a widely (over-)publicized wedding, about which The Hindu reported:

The much talked-about marriage of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s daughter and the former Pakistani Test cricketer Javed Miandad’s son began at a five star hotel here … amidst tight security and the festivities were out of bounds for those without invitation cards… [However]

The Deccan Herald added:

While [Javed] Miandad and his wife attended the late night ceremony on Saturday, it was not clear whether Dawood, who is… wanted by India in connection with the Mumbai serial bomb blasts, has attended the wedding. According to sources, Indian intelligence agencies kept a close watch at the venue of the wedding… especially to know who all are attending from India, especially from Mumbai. However, it is believed that no big shots from either Bollywood or from the sports circuit were present at the lavish ceremony.

Pakistan’s the Daily Times added more details:

The daughter of a wealthy Indian fugitive accused by Washington of links to Al Qaeda married the son of a top Pakistani cricketer in Dubai on Saturday, in a high society wedding with all the trappings of a Bollywood film… Former Pakistani cricket captain Javed Miandad confirmed earlier this month that his son Junaid would marry Mahrukh Ibrahim, whose father is accused by India of a wave of bomb attacks in Bombay in 1993 that killed 260 people… Police with sniffer dogs patrolled the grounds of the Dubai five-star hotel where a small crowd of media and onlookers gathered on a balmy night after news of the venue was leaked… Ibrahim, put on a US Treasury list of global terrorists in 2003, would have risked arrest by turning up. The stream of guests arriving including Javed Miandad, dressed in a white suit… Junaid met Mahrukh in London, where he is studying.

So, we got this this news about a year late. But let it not be said that ATP misses out on the ‘real’ news.