Mewat cousins Shamima, Ayesha clear NEET

Story by ATV | Posted by Aasha Khosa | Date 03-11-2021

Ayesha and Shamima

Yunus Alvi/Nuh (Haryana)

Two cousins living in a joint family of Rithoda village in Haryana's Nuh district have cracked the Medical college Entrance Examination- National Eligibility Entrance examination (NEET) – bringing joy to their clan, village, and also a region that has lagged in women’s education.

However, the most interesting fact of their story is that they were motivated by a Pir, a Sufi religious person.

Shamima and Ayesha’s fathers are brothers. Former’s father Mohammad Yusuf has three daughters and two sons. Shamima’s elder brother Shamim Ahmed is studying in the Medical college and is in the last year of his MBBS course; her second brother is studying to be an engineer. Their father is a teacher.

Mohammad Yusuf narrated to Awaz-the voice an incident that inspired him to push his children on the path of education. It was in the year 2014, he visited Pir Hazrat Mohammad Ilyas at a Khanqah in Raipur, Uttar Pradesh. Peer Saheb told him to make his daughter and son a doctor. “Peer Sahab used to say that if a woman becomes a doctor, thousands of women would not have to face the embarrassment of exposing their bodies to male doctors,” he said.

At that time, Shamima was studying in 7th class and his elder son Shamim was in 10th. He inspired his children to become doctors and both followed their father’s advice.

Shamima says, after completing her 9th standard, she started preparing for NEET. She had her cousin Ayesha started taking help from his son Shamim for preparing for the NEET.

The family sent the two cousins to Kota, Rajasthan, for extensive coaching for the NEET examination where they stayed for a year. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, they returned home and continued their preparations.

Shamima has secured 635 and Ayesha 622 rank in the NEET list of successful candidates.

Ramzan Chaudhary, a well-known social worker of Mewat, has expressed hope on the success of both the sisters that the future of this Muslim-majority region is bright. In recent times, many young men and women from the Mewat region have done well by clearing national-level competitive examinations.