Ameena, who hit the headlines 12 years ago as a child bride of an over-aged Arab, is all set to marry a Hyderabadi school-teacher.
Ameena was was forced into marriage with an Arab national, her grand-father's age, in 1991. She was only 11 then.
Air-hostess Amrita Ahluwalia noticed a sobbing Ameena while she was on her way to Delhi with her Arab husband. Ahluwalia got her taken off the flight and a case was booked against her father and the Arab national by the Delhi police.
Her plight generated lot of publicity, but very little help came Ameena's way. She was trained in embroidery work by a non-government organisation. Her father Badruddin, an auto-rickshaw driver, died in 1994 facing a court case on the one hand and broken promises of assistance from NGOs on the other.
The AP State Minorities Finance Corporation gave Ameena Rs 10,000 to set up a hand embroidery unit. She married off two of her siblings after her father's death.
Ameena is marrying Mohammed Abdul Majeed, who runs an Arabic school and owns an auto-rickshaw. It will be middle-aged Abdul Majeed's second marriage. His first wife deserted him, leaving behind three children.
One of Ameena's cousins, a neighbour of Abdul Majeed in Musheerabad, arranged the marriage.
A day before the marriage, media attention is once again focused on Ameena. Hordes of reporters crowded her small, rented house in a lower-class locality in the Old City on Saturday.
"Ameena is already 23 years old now. How long could she have remained single, especially since her two younger sisters are already married? She needs to have a family of her own," her mother Sabera Begum told newsmen on Saturday.
But the family is in dire straits these days.
"We have no money to perform the marriage. Even if a wedding is performed in the most frugal manner, it costs no less than Rs 35,000 these days. As of now, Ameena has only Rs 600 in her bank account. We have been given Rs 6,000 by two media organisations. I am going around to seek help from important community leaders to raise some more money for the marriage," Sabera Begum said.
A blushing Ameena told reporters: "I am happy that I have at last found a suitable match by Allah's grace. No one bothered about my fate all these years. I hope I will have better times ahead."
