Father confesses to throwing baby into river

NOTE: THIS STORY HAS BEEN CORRECTED.

IT WAS RARE for Shamsiddin Abdur-Raheem to open up to his family, so when the tall, quiet prelaw student told a gruesome story Tuesday night, his father listened closely and let him finish.

When the story was over, Mushin Raheem called the police and his son went to jail.

"It hurt. It really hurt," said a tired and bleary-eyed Raheem, sitting in the living room of his Winslow Township, Camden County, town house, where his son was arrested.

Raheem didn't want to discuss the details of the conversation with this reporter yesterday, but acting New Jersey Attorney General Paula Dow said that Abdur-Raheem, of Galloway, Atlantic County, ended a violent day Tuesday with an unthinkable act by throwing his 3-month-old daughter off a Garden State Parkway Bridge into the icy Raritan River in Middlesex County.

"You never know what triggers someone to go horribly wrong and this is one of those circumstances," Dow said. "This was his daughter and now we're searching for her body."

Dozens of emergency personnel, including divers, police and Coast Guard boats, and K-9 units had been searching the river and its shores for Zara Malani-lin Abdur since Tuesday night but had found nothing as of late last night.

"We're following anything we can get," said State Police spokesman Sgt. Stephen Jones. "We're looking in the waterway, but we're also looking along the Garden State Parkway."

Dow said that Abdur-Raheem, a student at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, in Galloway, had kidnapped his daughter from an East Orange apartment about 4 p.m. Tuesday, while the baby's mother, Venetta Benjamin, was out filing a temporary restraining order against him in Essex County Superior Court.

Abdur-Raheem forced his way into the apartment and struck the little girl's 60-year-old grandmother in the face and choked her before leaving with the baby, Dow said.

When the grandmother followed Abdur-Raheem into the parking lot and tried to prevent his escape, he struck her with the Dodge Caravan he was driving and tried to run her over, Dow said.

A woman who answered the phone at the East Orange apartment yesterday declined to comment, but earlier in the day Benjamin pleaded to reporters gathered outside the apartment for her daughter's safe return. Her attorney declined to discuss why the restraining order had been filed.

After leaving East Orange, Abdur-Raheem then fled south on the Parkway, allegedly stopping on the bridge in Sayreville to toss his daughter into the water. He then went to see Imam Amin Muhammad at the Masjid Mohammed, in Atlantic City, where he had grown up and attended high school.

Muhammad would not comment, but the organization as a whole was praying for the young girl, a spokesman said yesterday.

"As human beings, we are concerned and we hope it works out," said Kareem Sha- bazz.

Raheem said that his son and Muhammad had driven to his Winslow Township home Tuesday night. Authorities arrested Abdur-Raheem there without incident about 8 p.m., after Raheem called the police.

Dow said that authorities were in the process of issuing an Amber Alert when Abdur-Raheem was arrested.

Sitting in his living room yesterday, surrounded by pictures of his family and Muslim leaders, Raheem was unable to reconcile the "very peaceful" and devout Muslim who had excelled in school with the man who may have killed his own daughter.

"I pray to God that he gave that baby away . . . or did something else," he said. "I hope the baby is alive."

A spokesman for the college said that both Abdur-Raheem and Benjamin were enrolled there, but declined to comment further. Raheem said his son lived on the bucolic campus.

Raheem said that his son and Benjamin had been fighting recently, allegedly because she didn't want to marry him, but that he wasn't sure that was the reason. Abdur-Raheem rarely shared his troubles, his father said.

"I tried to let him know that he could have come to us and talked," he said. "He tried to deal with stuff on his own."

Abdur-Raheem was being held in the Essex County Correctional Facility on $700,000 bail and will be arraigned today on charges of kidnapping, attempted murder, aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

More charges could be pending, Dow said, but it depends on the outcome of the search for Abdur-Raheem's baby daughter.

"The longer the time passes," she said, "the worse the prognosis is for a happy ending."

The missing infant was reported to be wearing a pink and gray Carter's onesie and may have been wrapped in a blue sleeping bag. If anyone has any information about the case, they can contact New Jersey State Police at 732-264-4150.

CORRECTION:

Shamsiddin Abdur-Raheem, a New Jersey man who told authorities he had thrown his infant daughter over a bridge Tuesday night, was a former intern with the District of Columbia's Office of the Attorney General. A story in Thursday's Daily News identified the wrong location of Abdur-Raheem's internship.