Newspaper Article

Martin Sixsmith: 'We were both consumed by a search for the truth'

Sixsmith, Martin

2017

Overview

[Ayesha Rahman] was a second-generation British Pakistani woman; and she too had been through a devastating family tragedy. Her father, Ibrahim, had come to Britain from Karachi at the age of 16, settling in Burnley, Lancashire, where he found work in a textile mill. In Ayesha's telling, he had been the perfect parent. Her eyes welled with tears as she spoke about his kindness to her as a child; about the toys and presents he had showered on her; and about his refusal to accept traditional prejudices that disadvantage girls in favour of male children. We were looking for more than just the identity of Ibrahim's killers. We wanted to know why he was killed. And we wanted to know who he was -- honest family man, or someone with dangerous secrets hidden from the world? On that depended Ayesha's sense of herself. She had grown up with an image of her father that had shaped her perception of the world. To discover now that it had been a lie would have been a heavy blow. Her father's identity was at stake -- and so was hers. Ayesha and I were now consumed by an obsessive search for the truth about someone we had loved, and that shared understanding brought us together. I went back to Pakistan. I resumed the investigation. And I discovered the identity of Ibrahim's murderer and what sort of man he had been. I answered Ayesha's questions about her father, but I am not sure I have answered those in my own life.

• Publisher: Guardian News & Media Limited
• Subject: Lee, Philomena / Rahman, Ayesha / Sixsmith, Martin