A Luton man has died after he drowned on his honeymoon in Dubai two weeks after getting married.
Mohammed Majid Malik, 28, from Overston Road, Luton, drowned while swimming in a pool at around 1am during the trip to Dubai with his wife, Maira Shahid, on August 15, only 16 days after they were married.
The couple were married on July 30 in London, which was followed by a family celebration in Venue Central Luton on August 1, ahead of their honeymoon.
The incident occurred on their last night at the Ja Jebel Ali Golf Resort, when Mohammed, who worked as a mortgage adviser at Nationwide in Leighton Buzzard, and his wife went out for a walk around their resort.
Maira told the court: “We had gone to a different part of the hotel that we had not been to before after a day out, and went to paddle our feet in the pool.
“Mohammed said he wanted to go for a swim, and I asked him if he knew how as it is was our first holiday together, and he said he had done it before in the gym.
“So he walked into the pool, and I started taking some photographs of him in the pool as he was walking backwards
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“I put the phone down, and then all I saw was his arms waving in the air, and he was under the water.
“We did not realise that the pool had a steep drop in it, as we had not been in it before.”
Maira said she jumped into the pool to try and help, but she did not know how to swim, and her headscarf slipped down and covered her face so she could not see anything.
She managed to get herself to the side of the pool, and began screaming for help when two fellow guests at the hotel jumped in to help.
She said: “The two men managed to get him out of the pool, and the hotel staff arrived and began performing CPR on him, and he was eventually taken to hospital.”
Mohammed was pronounced dead at the hospital, and some members of his family, including his uncle Akhtar Mohammed Malik, flew out to assist Maira and help bring is body home, which they did yesterday.
The funeral was held in the Luton Central Mosque in Westbourne Road yesterday, and hundreds of people attended from across the UK.
Akhtar said: “Mohammed was a very well loved man, and his colleagues, friends, and extended family travelled to his funeral.
“He was a man of the community, and people of all races and cultures came to pay their respects.”
However the family were unable to perform the burial until the inquest procedures had begun.
Senior Corner, Tom Osborne, told the court that due to the circumstances of the death, a post mortem was not needed, and the family were free to commence their burial arrangements.
The full inquest has been adjourned until February 3, 2016, to give the coroner time to get the required information from the authorities in Dubai.
Akhtar said after the inquest: “His wife is traumatised as she witnessed the whole thing, and the family is very distraught.
“As a couple they had so little time together, and Mohammed’s young cousins have been asking where he is. It has been an extremely difficult time, and we are grateful for the coroner for opening these procedures so quickly, so we can give our son a proper burial.
“We will all miss him greatly.”
