[Reader-list] Don't Make Biryani At Home

[rehan ansari]

The New York Times

November 17, 2001

PENNSYLVANIA RAID

U.S. Agents Were Doing 'Their Jobs,' 3 Men Say

By SARA RIMER
Beverly Schaefer for The New York Times

Dr. Masood Shaikh, left, and his brother, Dr. Irshad
Shaikh, health officials in Chester, Pa., whose home
was raided by the F.B.I.

HESTER, Pa., Nov. 16 — Dr. Irshad Shaikh, this city's
health commissioner, who is from Pakistan, says he
loves America. He says he understands that the Federal
Bureau of Investigation was just doing its job when
its agents broke down his door on Tuesday and entered
his house with guns drawn, followed by members of a
hazardous materials team in moon suits and gas masks.

He says he is not angry that the F.B.I., acting on a
tip related to its so-far fruitless anthrax
investigation, carried out its raid in the middle of
the day on Tuesday, with neighbors gawking and
television cameras running, or that among the items
the agents confiscated were his computer and his
mother's teddy bears.

Dr. Shaikh, 39, who was trained as a radiologist in
his country and holds master's and doctoral degrees
from Johns Hopkins University, appears similarly
unruffled about the several hours of questioning
endured by him and his brother Masood, the manager of
the city's program to reduce lead hazards for
children.

"The F.B.I. can search my house any time," Dr. Irshad
Shaikh said in an interview at City Hall today with
his brother, who lives with him. The two are both
legal immigrants and are eager to become citizens.

Dr. Masood Shaikh, 40, who was trained as a
psychiatrist in Pakistan and holds a master's degree
in public health from Johns Hopkins, is so eager to
accommodate the F.B.I. that he offered to turn over
his passport, said the brothers' lawyer, Anthony F.
List, who was present for the interview today.

Three days after the raid at the brothers' home and at
the home of their friend, Asif Kazi, a city accountant
who was born in Pakistan and is now an American
citizen, the F.B.I. has charged none of the men. Nor
has it provided any detail on what led to the raid,
other than to say agents were acting on credible
information that they had spent more than two weeks
checking out.

The search warrant and supporting affidavits are
sealed. But interviews with the brothers and Mr. Kazi
indicate that at least some of the F.B.I.'s attention
was focused on a pot the brothers carried to Mr.
Kazi's house so his wife could prepare a traditional
Pakistani chicken and rice dish.

Linda Vizi, a spokeswoman for the F.B.I., said the
raid on Tuesday was "not haphazard in any way."

"It was given thoughtful consideration based on the
information we had," she said.

The Shaikh brothers and Mr. Kazi, who say they will
appear before a federal grand jury on Dec. 20, have
denied any wrongdoing. Mayor Dominic F. Pileggi has
been effusive in his support of them, as have other
city officials.

Like the Shaikh brothers, Mr. Kazi, had only praise
for the F.B.I. But he did not hide his distress over
what had happened.

"I'm still in trauma," he said. "I cannot sleep
properly. I cannot eat. You are worried of the fear of
the unknown. What's going to happen tomorrow?"

Mr. Kazi said he had been at work, and his wife,
Palwasha, 38, had been home alone Tuesday morning,
cooking rice for his lunch in her nightgown, when she
saw the armed agents running toward the house.

"They broke the door," he said. "They kept her sitting
at gunpoint, in the dining room on a chair. That's the
standard procedure. I am not complaining."

Mr. Kazi said the agents questioned him about some
Cipro that they had confiscated from his house. Cipro
is one of the antibiotics used to treat anthrax.

Mr. Kazi said that the drugs were prescribed by a
doctor for his wife, to treat repeated bladder
infections.

Mr. Kazi said the F.B.I. also questioned him about a
cloudy liquid that he was reportedly seen dumping on
the ground behind his home. He said it was soapy water
from the washing machine that had backed up into the
adjacent sink. "My wife is a maniac as far as washing
is concerned," he said.

He said agents had also asked about a large
silver-colored canister that the Shaikh brothers, who
have been his friends for more than 20 years, were
seen putting into their car and unloading at his
house.

The canister, Mr. Kazi and the Shaikh brothers said,
was a large silver pot that they had brought for Mrs.
Kazi to use for her prized chicken and rice dish.

"We are only two," Mr. Kazi said. "We use small pots.
She told them, `Bring a big pot from your house so I
can cook for you in quantity.' "

The F.B.I.'s search also focused on a health clinic,
which will serve AIDS patients and others, that is to
open in Dr. Shaikh's house in January.

The clinic will occupy the first floor and the
basement, which were previously used as medical
offices.

Dr. Howell Strauss, a dentist who runs the nonprofit
AIDS group that will operate the clinic, said that
renovations on the space began in July, and in the
last several weeks contractors have been changing the
radiators, and often working into the evening.

Dr. Strauss said the F.B.I. had searched the clinic's
space, questioned a carpenter working there, and
seized, among other items, a Gatorade bottle filled
with glue that Dr. Strauss said had been used to build
shelves.

Mr. Kazi, who was hired as city accountant last year,
said he had been working on his first city budget when
the F.B.I. agents arrived in his office.

"I just want to excel in my career," he said.

Mr. Kazi said that he had never been in trouble, and
had only gotten his first parking ticket on Thursday,
when he went to his lawyer, Mr. List's, office, in
Media, Pa., and did not have enough coins for the
meter.

"If, God forbid, I've done something wrong, hang me in
the middle of the road. If not, leave me alone."


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