A Towson, Md., woman whose photo was misidentified by the Sri Lankan government as a suspect in the Easter Day bombings said Friday that the mistake prompted death threats against her and distress for her family in Sri Lanka.
BALTIMORE (Tribune News Service) — A Towson, Md., woman whose photo was misidentified by the Sri Lankan government as a suspect in the Easter Day bombings said Friday that the mistake prompted death threats against her and distress for her family in Sri Lanka.
« I received so many death threats because of this horrible mistake, so many people just calling for me to be hanged and all of these horrible, horrible acts, » Amara Majeed said during a news conference at the office for the Maryland chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Catonsville.
She recounted learning about the error while in her dormitory room at Brown University, where she is a senior.
« In the midst of finals season, I woke up in my dorm room to 35 missed calls, all frantically informing me that I had been falsely identified as one of the terrorists involved in the recent Easter attacks in my beloved homeland of Sri Lanka, » she said.
Majeed said her family in Sri Lanka has been « bombarded with so many calls and questions, » and her family in the United States has been « terrified » because of the vitriol she’s received online.
Sri Lankan authorities used a photograph of Majeed, a 2015 graduate of Towson High School, to identify Abdul Cader Fathima Qadiya, one of six suspects in the bombings that killed over 250 people.
Both Majeed and Zainab Chaudry, CAIR’s Maryland outreach director, said they did not know how authorities found her picture.
