SAN JOSE, Dec. 21, 2005
Atma Singh
After a six-week search, Dr. Zehra Attari’s
body was found in her car at the bottom of the Oakland
Estuary in Almeda, Calif.
Divers at the Grand Street pier on Tuesday, Dec.
20, 2005 located a car matching the description of
Attari’s 2001 gray Honda Accord. After lifting
the car from the murky water, police discovered the
doctor’s body…
According to police and residents, the road on which
Attari was traveling is deadly — no barrier between
the street and the water exists. They say it is likely
that someone who didn’t know the area could drive
off the pier and into the water unknowingly.
This is kind of scary because I think it may remind
many of us about our own mothers. Her family describes
her as being an under-confident driver and easily
disoriented when traveling new routes. I know this
description fits my own mother when she is faced with
highway driving.
Attari was not far from her destination that evening
on Nov. 7. A right turn onto Otis Drive would have
set her back on track. Instead, Attari made a left.
When she finally made a right a few blocks down, it
was onto Grand Street.
While Grand Street is not exactly a road to nowhere,
it is a road that leads directly into the cold black
waters of the Oakland estuary. That is where Attari’s
journey ended.
NRI,
Dr. Zehra Attari of Oakland, Missing
SAN JOSE, Nov. 11, 2005
Atma Singh
NR, non-resident Indian, Dr. Zehra Attari
wife Tassaduq Attari, 55-year old Indian female pediatrician
and left her clinic located on 2700 International
Blvd. in Oakland at around 5:00 pm for a meeting at
6:30 pm at Alameda Alliance for Health in Alameda.
Doctors and affiliates of Alameda say that she never
showed up for the meeting.
She had about $700 of petty cash, and
had left her keys and bag in the clinic. She always
left that bag when she was about to go to a meeting,
and would only take it with her if she were going
straight home. When her medical assistant called her
cell phone at around 6:05 pm it appeared to be turned
off. No one has been able to contact her since. She
was wearing a light blue long-sleeved knit sweater
with navy blue pants of a polyester blend. She has
black shoes and black glasses. She was driving a silver
2001 Honda Accord, license plate number 4MUH810. She
has a light tan complexion and is slightly overweight.
According to Mercury News, long before
she opened an office to serve low-income patients
in Oakland, Dr. Zehra Attari had devoted her life
to medicine. She spent three years away from her family
so she could finish her medical residency here.
``She struggled very hard to do that,'' said her
daughter, Dr. Ruby Ali, who followed in her mother's
footsteps and is a medical resident at the University
of California-Davis Medical Center. ``She was able
to master medicine in English, which is not her first
language.''
Attari was so willing to help others, it's inconceivable
to her family and friends that now others have been
asked to help look for the pediatrician with the big,
ready smile.
After leaving her office in west Oakland just after
5 p.m. Monday to attend a meeting in Alameda, Attari
disappeared and has not been seen or heard from since.
And no one has spotted her gray Honda Accord, with
the license number 4MUH810.
``On that day, because my back was turned toward
the window, I didn't see which way she left,'' said
Attari's medical assistant, Connie Maldonado.
Thursday, it will have been three years since Attari
opened her office on International Boulevard in Oakland,
and Maldonado has been with her the entire time.
``We're all like a happy little family here,'' Maldonado
said. ``Her husband comes here two to three times
a week, and he's like part of our staff here.''
A retired engineer, Attari's husband, Tasadduq, manages
the family's business interests and happily pitched
in to drive his wife when she needed to go someplace
new. He was ill last Monday, when Attari headed out
to the meeting on her own in heavy rain and rush hour
traffic.
On that day, ``her last patient was scheduled at
4:15,'' Maldonado said. ``They arrived at 4:30, and
the doctor said to bring them on in.
``The children really love her. Three of them came
to the office when they got out of school yesterday.
They were crying, and I start tearing up,'' she said.
The majority of Attari's patients are low income,
and she never pressed them for insurance co-payments
and gave many patients free medicine, her family said.
``She was just one of those people,'' her daughter
Ruby Ali said. ``Things she didn't have to do, she
would do. She didn't have to work in Oakland, but
she chose to.''
And despite the heartache at the time, Attari spent
a year of her medical residency in Texas and two years
in New York while her family remained in California.
Her dedication and enthusiasm has her other daughter,
Huma, a student at University of California-Berkeley,
also thinking about a career in medicine, Ali said.
At home in the Evergreen community of San Jose, Attari
has a wide circle of friends and is very active in
community events. She's an excellent cook and loves
to sew, Ali said.
``She's a very dedicated person, a very kind-hearted
person,'' Ali said.
And her friends and family want her back home.
``I have a feeling she'll be walking through that
door anytime, with a smile on her face,'' said Maldonado,
her medical assistant. ``Her husband has said that,
and her daughter said she has a gut feeling she's
out there somewhere and will come back.
``She'll be walking through that door anytime.''
The family has offered a $10,000 reward for any information
that could help locate Attari. Anyone who would like
to help in the search is asked to call (408) 476-6723
or (510) 557-6695.
