Post 26/11, the city has seen a flood of donations for the terror victims. However, while most people preferred to send the money and necessities through some channels, two IT professionals from Delhi chose to meet the victims they wanted to help.

So, instead of relaxing during the long Republic Day weekend, IT professionals Tanmay Saxena (27) and Harjyot Singh (28), and former’s wife Tanya, came down to the city to visit the victims.

Though they had initially planned to help Momina Khatoon, whose husband Mohammad Umar was driving the taxi that blew up near the domestic airport on the fateful night, the two later decided to help as many people as they could. “I had read in the newspapers about Momina, so I decided to help her. Besides her, we wanted to help as many people as possible in those two days that we were in the city. So we began to search for people who we could help,” Saxena said.

After searching, they met relatives of Peer Pasha and Hidayat Kazi, the two waiters who had lost their lives in Café Leopold attack, and Savitri Gupta who lost her husband in the CST firing. While they gifted Momina with a sewing machine and some ration, they gave Pasha’s elder brother Chand, Kazi’s mother and Savitri a cheque of Rs 25,000 each.

“We have been collecting this money for the past month so that we could come to Mumbai and help these people,” said Saxena.

He said that reaching Momina was not easy. “After trying many avenues to get her address, I finally got in touch with her through one Mohammad Salim of the All India Ekta Committee. He suggested that the best gift for Momina would be one that would help her provide for herself and her three sons. So we decide to gift her a sewing machine instead of money,” he said. After that, they tracked down the relatives of the Café Leopold waiters and Savitri and offered them the cheques.