A viral video has reportedly brought the plight of an Indian woman found starving on the streets of Chicago into the public eye.
In the video, which was posted last night by various political party leaders such as Telangana’s Majlis Bachao Tehreek (MBT) spokesperson Amjed Ullah Khan and Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s Khaleequr Rahaman on Twitter, the apparently homeless woman says that her name is Syeda Lulu Minhaj Zaidi and she belongs to Hyderabad.
According to sources, Syeda Lulu Minhaj Zaidi was studying for a Master’s degree from TRINE University in Detroit in August 2021.
Her mother, Syeda Wahaj Fatima, has written to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar asking him to intervene and bring her daughter back to India. The Ministry of External Affairs has responded and said a grievance has been filed on the Madad portal which has been forwarded to the consulate in Chicago, according to a report in the Times of India.
“My daughter Syeda Lulu Minhaj Zaidi, a resident of Maula Ali in Telangana, went to pursue her Masters at TRINE University in Detroit during August 2021 and was often in touch with us. But, for the past two months, she has not been in touch with me and recently we came to know through two Hyderabad youths that my daughter is in depression and someone stole her belongings, which left her to starvation. My daughter was spotted on the roads of Chicago in the USA,” the letter read.
She also wrote that her daughter could be traced with the help of one Mohammed Minhaj Akhter and asked the Embassy of India in Washington DC and the Indian Consulate in Chicago for help.