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Mother Fatima Son Nisar

Son Nazir

Daughter Mumtaz

Daughter Breshna

The

Rahimis Imam Muhammed S. Mehtar at the Khadeeja mosque in West Valley City says that both families “are important to us. We want to see good for their future.” But, he says, “it saddens us that people come to America and take the law into their own hands as if living in a place other than America. As if we are back home.” It’s important, he says, that those who come to America create a blend of their cultures and assimilate where they can. He acknowledges that the pain of bereavement for members of the Mullahkhel family is “severe,” but, he says, “If we don’t examine the cause of that killing”—or any incident of violence—“then we will be getting continual vengeance on both sides.” The Rahimi family has never spoken publicly about the relationship between Nazir and Nargis or the killing of Nargis’ brother Farhad. But with Nazir facing, if he is deported, what they say is certain death in Afghanistan—either at the hands of the Taliban or people connected to the Mullahkhels—Nazir and several members of his family shared their stories with City Weekly. The Mullahkhels declined to comment. On behalf of the family, a man who declined to give his name said the Mullahkhels preferred to “leave it to God.” Farhad’s sister Bilquis Mullahkhel spoke at Nazir’s April 5, 2011, parole-board hearing. She told Nazir that the gates of heaven “will not be open to you in this life or the hereafter. This life is not eternal; you may not pay the penalty in this life, but I promise you, you will in the hereafter.” Nazir quietly replied at the hearing that in one sense he agreed. “The United States was a heaven to me. And the United States door is already closed to me. She’s right about that. The door of heaven is closed for me.”

THIS IS AMERICA

It’s a tradition for members of the Afghan community to welcome new refugees when they arrive. Muhammed Mullahkhel, who has lived in Utah since the early 1970s and owns a convenience store in downtown Salt Lake City, visited the Rahimis shortly after they arrived, bringing them the Afghan treat of sugared walnuts. Haji Rahimi recalls that when he first got to know Muhammed Mullahkhel—known as Omar—Mullahkhel’s wife was in Afghanistan,

having taken their two teenage daughters—14-year-old Bilquis and 16-year-old Nargis—to marry older men. Court documents also note that Bilquis was “required to marry an older man at age 14 for cultural reasons.” The two girls, Nazir says, had been “hanging out with guys at high school, dishonoring their family.” The Mullahkhels believed, he says, that by bringing them home pregnant, their husbands to follow later, they would get “their honor back, and at the same time the Afghan community [in Utah would] become bigger.” While Omar and Haji Rahimi were friends, Haji didn’t agree with the decision to marry the children off. “To me, it’s not correct; we cannot force our children to marry someone,” he says. “We want them to have their freedom, choose the way they want to live their life. We can guide them, not force them.” Still, the parents of the two families became close, especially the mothers. The Rahimis desperately wanted to bring Nazir over from Germany, and Omar, Haji says, was one of two members of the Utah Afghan community who provided witnessing signatures for the paperwork. “My mom fasted for 40 days praying to Allah to bring her son back,” Nazir says. Nazir quickly adjusted to life in the States after his arrival in 2001. All the 19-year-old liked to do “was work, spend money on girls and mind his own business,” his brother Nisar says. Both young men spent hours every day working out at the gym. “We want to impress the girls,” Nisar says. Nazir says he met Nargis at Green Street Social Club on New Year’s Eve in 2006 and that both Nargis and Bilquis called him the next day to say that Nargis liked him and wanted to date. It was only later, he says, that he realized they were the children of his parents’ friends the Mullahkhels. He knew that her family was traditional Muslim, but his family, he believed, would have no problem with them seeing each other. “This is America,” he says. “I do what I want to do.”

FIGHTING WORDS

The men who had married Bilquis and Nargis in Afghanistan petitioned them for divorce in 2004 and 2006, respectively. Divorce put the sisters at the center of sometimes-violent family disputes and led to the sisters being “shunned” as outcasts from their family and even assaulted by relatives “due to cultural and reli-

gious beliefs,” according to a West Valley City Police report. Nazir’s sister Breshna Rahimi had met Nargis and Bilquis at a baby shower. Bilquis “was beat up really bad,” Breshna later told a Utah immigration-court judge. Breshna recalled that Bilquis told her, “I got beat up by my brothers because I was dating another guy.” City Weekly accessed 33 police reports through a record request to West Valley City Police Department that reveal family members at war with one another, particularly in the aftermath of the sisters’ divorces. The reports include complaints of assaults and violent threats mixed with allegations of made-up reports and fake texts. “This is a Muslim household,” middle son Ajmal Mullahkhel told a West Valley City Police officer in reference to Bilquis’ relationships with several men, “and if she did these things in Afghanistan where we’re from, she’d be killed.” Bilquis responded, “We’re not in Afghanistan.” But for all the fraught emotions within the Mullahkhel clan, it was the on-again, off-again relationship between Nargis and Nazir that sparked a feud between the two families that “escalated to a point that resulted in an absolute tragedy,” as Utah Board of Pardons and Parole member Jesse Gallegos would later tell the two families. The couple went on trips to San Francisco and Las Vegas, and Nazir, Nargis and her two children eventually moved in together. They loved each other at first, but then, Nazir says, it devolved into

In comparison to the lack of freedom in Pakistan, Nisar Rahimi says, “this place was heaven, I couldn’t be more happy. There were times I used to sit and thank god for taking us out of that dirty country.”

simply “a sexual thing.” He says he paid $4,000 for Nargis to get breast implants. “If you look good, I look good,” he says he told her. Neither Omar nor his oldest son, Abdul, was happy with Nargis dating Nazir, Nazir’s sister Mumtaz Rahimi says. “In the Afghan community, a lot of people talk bad about a family if the daughter is dating and not married,” she says. “ ‘Why is your daughter with Nazir? They’re not even married.’ ” Haji Rahimi says that as soon as he became aware that Nazir was dating Nargis, he told him to stop— not because he necessarily objected to the relationship, but because he knew it would cause trouble with the other family. “If somebody is dating an Afghan, they have to be engaged, they have a party to announce the engagement.” The couple repeatedly broke up, then got back together as the intense family politics of the Mullahkhels spilled over into Nazir and Nargis’ personal dramas. Several Rahimi children filed police reports of threats and violence from the Mullahkhel children. Nargis would later say she was a victim of domestic violence by Nazir. Nazir’s brother Nisar recalls a phone call from middle Mullahkhel brother Ajmal, who said, “You don’t know who you are messing with. I got a 9mm in my car.” Nisar says he didn’t understand what Ajmal was referring to at the time, so he laughed and said he had a 10mm. Several months later at a downtown club, Nisar

NIKI CHAN

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20 | APRIL 10, 2014

Father Haji