Mother of Muslim NYPD cadet who died in towers collapse fights to have son's name on 9/11 memorial for first responders

He was a Muslim Pakistani-American with a college degree in biochemistry, and in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, he had gone missing.

Mohammad Salman Hamdani, a 23-year-old NYPD cadet and paramedic living in Queens, became the subject of a "wanted" flyer with his police ID photo circulated at NYPD precincts in early October. “Joint Terrorist Task Force Seeking Him," the flyer said, and noted that Hamdani “Has Chemistry Background!!"

The New York Post ran a story with the headline: “Missing or Hiding? — Mystery of NYPD Cadet from Pakistan."

It turned out Hamdani was not missing. He was dead. He had dashed into the Twin Towers to try to rescue people and was crushed to death when they collapsed. His body was eventually recovered in 34 pieces.

Fighting for recognition 

A quarter-century after his death, on the 25th anniversary of the attacks, Hamdani’s mother, Talat Hamdani, 74, of Lake Grove, is still fighting to clear his name and get him proper recognition.

Her son’s name is engraved on the black bronze walls at the National Sept. 11 Memorial in lower Manhattan, but not among the first responders.

Instead, it appears on the memorial’s last panel for World Trade Center victims, next to a blank space alongside the names of some others who did not fit the memorial’s general rubrics of first responders or civilians killed inside the towers.

One was a lawyer who breathed in dust that day as she ran from her office a block away from the Twin Towers and died five months later. Another was an Internal Revenue Service worker who was hit by falling debris as he walked by the north tower moments after American Airlines Flight 11 struck it. He died three months later of his injuries.

Talat Hamdani feels it is an injustice and an insult to Muslims in general to not have her son included among the first responders who died that day. 

“It’s wrong," she told Newsday. “It’s cheating him in his death also. It’s about his dignity and respect. It’s about his sacrifice."

She is especially incensed because her son was called a “hero" by the NYPD commissioner at his funeral, which included full police honors. On the first anniversary of the attacks, the department gave her a police shield posthumously promoting her son to sergeant, she said.

He was also hailed in the Patriot Act, a federal law passed after 9/11 that expanded surveillance. It stated that "many Arab Americans and Muslim Americans have acted heroically during the attacks on the United States, including Mohammed Salman Hamdani, a 23-year-old New Yorker of Pakistani descent, who is believed to have gone to the World Trade Center to offer rescue assistance and is now missing."

Not a part of 'official response' 

The NYPD, responding to questions from Newsday, said Hamdani did not qualify to be included with first responders because his three years of participation with the cadet program had ended on July 21, 2001, following his graduation from college that June.

On Sept. 11, “he was absent without leave from the NYPD Cadet Corps and was not in any way a part of the NYPD’s official response to the World Trade Center," the department said in a statement.

“The Department recognizes Mohammad Hamdani’s sacrifice as a private citizen who was killed at the World Trade Center on September 11th where his name is included on the 9/11 Memorial wall," the NYPD said.

NYPD cadets are college students who are paid through a public-service program, working part-time for the force during the school year and full-time during the summer, according to the department’s website. The program, somewhat like ROTC for the military, provides a direct path to become an NYPD officer, according to the department’s website. Hamdani was recruited for the program, his mother said.

After graduating from Queens College in June 2001, Hamdani had taken the test to enter the police academy, she said. He was also hoping to attend medical school, but if he didn’t get in he wanted to work as a detective in the NYPD and use his science background in forensic work, she said.

He was a part-time EMT but to qualify as a first responder a person had to belong to an agency such as the FDNY or NYPD, memorial officials said, meaning an independent EMT would not qualify.

A sacrifice not forgotten

Josh Cherwin, a spokesman for the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum, said that in determining who would be listed on the panels as first responders, memorial officials relied on consultations with families of victims and “official information provided by the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office and first responder and law enforcement agencies" such as the NYPD.

The process included a system by which first responders were defined as those who received the 9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor from President George W. Bush in September 2005, Newsday has previously reported. The NYPD supplied its list for the medal, naming 23 officers or other personnel including a video unit director. Hamdani did not receive the medal of valor. 

Hamdani “was among the many brave individuals killed on 9/11 while helping others and his name is permanently etched in bronze on the 9/11 Memorial among the 2,977 victims of that horrific day," Cherwin said in a statement. Each name “represents a precious life lost and Mr. Hamdani's service and sacrifice will never be forgotten."

Mohammad Hassan Khalil, a professor of religious studies and director of the Muslim Studies program at Michigan State University, said he believes Hamdani should be included as a first responder.

“Someone who chooses to save others and actually goes out of his way to save others — after having been trained as a first responder — deserves special mention," Khalil said. “No doubt about that."

Hamdani’s case also has national repercussions, said Khalil, who made a documentary film about him: “Salman's heroism challenges the one-dimensional conceptions of Muslims that were propagated as a result of the 9/11 attacks."

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s first Muslim mayor, did not respond to a request for comment.

Hamdani’s family believes he was on his way to work as a lab technician at Rockefeller University in Manhattan that day when from an elevated subway train he saw the smoke and diverted to the World Trade Center to help the victims. He likely used his police and EMT identification to get through police lines to the scene, his mother said.

“We all knew that he would go down to help at the World Trade Center because that was his sort of mission — if he would see someone" who needed help, he would help, said his mother, a retired teacher. “He was a very compassionate young man."

But weeks after the attack, NYPD officers came to the family’s home in Bayside, Queens, to question them about Hamdani, his mother said. Missing posters the family put up got torn down.

“It hurt deeply," Talat Hamdani said. To many people, the family “was like a pariah."

But in March 2002, her son was identified after his corpse was pulled out of the north tower wreckage alongside his medical kit. The next month, the NYPD gave Hamdani a funeral with full honors.

Then-NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly told mourners that Hamdani's concern for others "led him to the World Trade Center. ... Like all the other Americans who responded, he was indeed a hero."

Then-Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told the crowd that “most people would have gone in the other direction. He went in to help people."

In 2014, a street in Bayside, Queens, near where the family had been living was renamed "Salman Hamdani Way." Queens College and Rockefeller University have created scholarship awards in his name.

Waiting for son's return

Hamdani came to the United States from Pakistan with his parents when he was 13 months old, eventually became a U.S. citizen and was by his mother’s account a devoted American who loved “Star Wars" and played on his high school football team.

His death has traumatized his family, said Khalil, the professor and filmmaker.

“What his family went through was unbelievable," Khalil said. “They went from missing their son, to being falsely accused of being associated with terrorism, to finding their son's corpse."

For years after that, Hamdani’s father, who died in 2004 of cancer, slept on the floor by the front door of the family’s home, Khalil said. He kept the door unlocked, since the father believed “that Salman would one day return," he said.

His mother knows he is not coming back but wants to honor his memory in what she calls the proper way.

“It’s important for his sacrifice to be honored," she said.