No matter which country you travel to, Chinese food finds its way on the menu, into restaurants and takeaway containers. There are Chinatowns in America, in England and even in Kenya. Most of these menus will promise an addictive bastardised medley — the food will be whatever you want it to be. Spicy. Greasy. Salty. Doughy. Meaty. Complete with a dragon or a chopstick logo.

When you land in China, make sure you pop an imaginary table water cracker to cleanse your palate of all biases, assumptions and preconceived notions. It’s a country where bitter gourd tastes pleasant and juicy, noodles have hundreds of varieties and people drink apple cider vinegar because it’s considered healthier than plain juice.

In fact, part of your culinary journey in China mimics the exploration (and explosions) best described by Remy, the sophisticated protagonist (also a rodent) in Pixar’s Ratatouille. Many Pakistanis often describe food in China as smelly, insipid, intimidating and at times downright revolting, because, “they eat dogs you know.” Well, yes, in some areas. But for the most part, all that needs to be unlearnt. And just as Remy scurrying about in a pristine kitchen challenges basic stereotypes about food and rats, Chinese cuisine will challenge stereotypes about ‘real Chinese food.’

Chinese to my ears

I was there for a photography junket courtesy the country’s state-owned English newspaper China Daily and I admit, being hosted was a huge boon. The paper’s staffers were there to help me navigate all sorts of things I wished to experience and to avoid unpleasant situations where not knowing a word of Chinese would have tripped me up. The other saviour was Youdao, a handy dictionary-cum-search engine app for android. I admit it was not half as fun as my Chinese guides laughing at how I pronounce Shanxi and Shaanxi — which read almost the same but are tonally distinct — but served the purpose well. As did the few key phrases which I asked my friends to jot down in my notebook above their English translations.

The first supper

My first meal in China was at Mr Lu’s in Xi’an, an affordable, basic restaurant facing a commercial lane, just off the corporate area. I balked when I saw the menu. None of it looked like the chowmein, Manchurian or Kung Pao which I am so used to ordering off Pakistani Chinese menus.

My two local companions ordered for me, making me feel a tad bit like a lost child. When the plates hit the table, the simplicity of the meal was only overshadowed by its freshness. There was a plate of crispy, whole fish, each the size of my palm, dusted with a spice and with bones that were too soft to cause any harm. As soon as you pop the fried papery skin encasing the white meat, the fish melts into your mouth, making you want more.

The two different types of dumplings, chicken and vegetarian, were hot pockets of flavour, only to be enhanced with a red chilli and oil dipping sauce. And the last dish to complete the feast, the most common dish to be found in almost every restaurant, a tomato and egg curry, was never too eggy and never too tart.

My Chinese love affair had begun

Of course, visiting Jinci Temple or watching Shanxi’s child performers on stilts in Taiyuan city filled in the spaces which food never can. Jinci Temple, according to my hosts, is almost 3,000 years old. It would be easy to spend the entire day there, ambling from one gorgeous structure to the next, staring at the original hand-painted facades, all under sprawling trees with history spanning from their gnarly roots to their green tips. In fact, our hosts had kept each of our days packed back-to-back with enough activities to tire the energiser bunny and satiate the culture junkie.

When I was told we had to climb Mount Tai, the second of three mountains and five activities slotted for one sweltering day in Taiyuan in May, I tried to put my foot down. But I soon learnt a quick lesson in subservience: when a senior in a team (under the supreme authority of the Peoples Republic) says climb, you just ask, how high?

Though, looking back, I am glad I did climb that mountain high enough. The view was gorgeous, with soothing music piping through faux rock speakers dotting the trail all the way up to our lunch destination. More importantly, before lunching at the Buddhist Longquan Temple, there was a pit stop for Pu’er tea on the way up.

Like noodles and Chinese wine, green tea is an essential part of the Chinese meal, or rather, the Chinese day. And like many tea ceremonies in the country, Pu’er tea is served after each individual cup is warmed by a ritualistic pouring of hot water over and into it. Even under the back-beating sun, a cup of hot Pu’er tea is cooling and calming.

The monks in Longquan Temple do not eat meat. Sitting at a spinning round table (a common design element in China associated with family reunions) is a test of chopstick thievery skills. You have to be quick or else the wheat noodles (al dente) with rich tomato sauce or the steamed pumpkin will disappear quicker than you can say shay she-a or thank you in Chinese. Though, it must be mentioned, the plates at Longquan were refilled with equal swiftness.

If anyone wants to be mesmerised by the art of handmade noodles, Jin Yuan restaurant in Taiyuan is the place to go. The waiters there put on a little show, where they turn large noodle dough into angel hair pasta (La mian), an unending singular string of fat spaghetti (Yigen mian), or short curls, using scissors, chopsticks, blades and their bare hands. In fact, the restaurant is an unintentionally kitschy place which has sections dedicated to replicating the wonders of China on a small scale. One look at the miniature replica of the Hanging Temple makes any avid traveller lust for the real one in Datong City in Shanxi.

Chinese-to-English for essentials you might need.

While there were several brilliant banquets where each course was so fancy that it put us to shame in our reporters garb, the food found on the streets was also an experience, to say the least. The food street in Taiyuan is shiny and new but mimics the ancient, with all the right ingredients thrown in for tourists such as red lanterns, colourful facades and wooden stalls with offerings like warm, roasted peanuts. Nothing historic but nothing to scoff at either. The pedestrian market streets of Zhangjiagang in Jiangsu borrow from both Europe and local aesthetics. From the Hello Kitty store to the deep-fried treats, it’s a perfect spot for nibbles and people watching.

1. Detail of a hand-painted facade at Jinci Temple, Taiyuan 2. Taiyuan folk dance 3. Locks placed for love and luck at a temple adjacent the Giant Buddha in Taiyuan 4. Szechuan-style hotpot 5. Cups being warmed up during Pu’er tea ceremony 6. Tea ceremony in Zhangjiagang 7. Hand-sculpted sugar and dough desserts at Taiyuan’s food street 8. Apple cider vinegar which locals believe has restorative powers

Bright city lights

Don’t start the trip with Shanghai if your heart lies in city life. Enthusiasm for quaint adventures is quick to fade when you enter the lovely mix of European and Chinese life that Shanghai offers.

One step into one of the many tube stations (called the Metro) there and the deprived Pakistani within me was ready to move to Shanghai. Also who wouldn’t want to live in a place which offers Beatles tribute clubs not far from a shiny gold (Jing An) temple in the middle of several high streets?

A walk through the French Concession will find you all your fixes: beer gardens, bars, bakeries with buttery croissants, art galleries, independent designers and shoe makers, and museums. From there, the shops at Nanjing Road (high street and designer ware) will take you towards the Bund. I would recommend crossing over the Huangpu River to what is promised to be a spectacular view of old Shanghai from the 58^th floor of the Ritz Carlton, Pudong.

Unfortunately, I had more of an ‘evening in the clouds’ because it was an overcast day. But Flair, the Asian tapas bar there, made up for the missing view with an impressive offering of sushi and cocktails. Sushi in the middle of the clouds after a long day of walking around the French Quarters was a perfect way to end my Oriental express trip.

Dear Shanghai, I am still in love.

The star list from Shanxi, Shaanxi and Jiangsu 

*Shaji ice cream in Taiyuan

*The steaming bowl of shellfish with vermicelli in Zhangjiagang at Jiyanghu Hotel

*Bitter gourd batons in Yonglian Village which are hard to associate with the truly bitter karailay we eat in Pakistan. These are almost sweet, and explode in your mouth with a fresh juice.

*Also at Yonglian Village, mushrooms in their own peppery juices.

*Hot pot anywhere is an absolute delight. You can chose your broth, ranging from mild to fiery hot and then pick your add-ons from meat, noodles, vegetables and sauce. Golden Dish, tucked away behind Jing An Temple in Shanghai is highly recommended.

*Salty porridge at Jin Yun restaurant in Taiyuan. It’s like a porridge soup, with beans, corn and soya so it sounds like food for those sans teeth but the soup is packed with comfort.

*China has blocked a number of sites, and, in addition to Facebook and Twitter, Gmail, Chrome, Hangouts, and Google Docs will mostly not work. To get around this, you need to download the Tor browser bundle before you leave Pakistan’s websphere — just put it on a usb and plug and play.

*Every airport there will sell local SIMs but some SIMs can only be topped up in the province in which you buy them. So ask for a nationwide top up SIM, preferably a China Mobile connection.

Halima Mansoor is a senior subeditor on The Express Tribune Peshawar desk. She tweets @hmansoor

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 3^rd,  2014.

Closely associated with the polio programme in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, one official, requesting anonymity, said the number of reported cases in the country is “expected” to cross 200. At the moment, Pakistan has 108 reported cases.

Cases linked to Karachi

The poliovirus in a 10-month-old girl and a 12-month-old girl—both from Peshawar—has been traced back to a virus, said to have originated in Karachi. The same virus has also been linked to the child diagnosed in Chakwal, Punjab. The 35-month-old girl is said to be the first reported diagnosis from the province since the late 90s.

Some of K-P’s health experts and officials have said these cases linked to the virus in Karachi were the last ones to have surfaced in Peshawar. They cited negative environmental sampling in Larama and Shaheen Muslim Town for the first time in two years as evidence of the success of Sehat ka Insaf.

Peshawar’s own virus has ended, one of the experts claimed, requesting anonymity. The last polio victim’s virus originated in Karachi, they reiterated. However, it has not been confirmed if the children in Peshawar had travelled to Karachi or if someone from the city by the sea had carried the poliovirus to Peshawar.

While talking to The Express Tribune, K-P Chief Minister’s Polio Cell Focal Person Dr Imtiyaz Khan said after Sehat Ka Insaf, Peshawar’s poliovirus has been largely eradicated. Khan was hopeful the 241,000 children of North Waziristan Agency (NWA), deprived of polio vaccinations since 2012, could now be reached. Close to 50,000 families were displaced from NWA in the wake of Operation Zarb-e-Azb. “The government hopes Pakistan would be polio free soon,” said Khan.

From 108 to 200?

There were only 38 reported cases in the first eight months of 2013; by November 2014, Pakistan will have around 200 reported cases, asserted health officials.

High-transmission months do fall between April and November, but some of K-P’s health experts claimed the increase in cases can also be blamed on the inefficacy of the polio vaccine in hot weather.

However, UNICEF’s K-P and Fata polio team leader Dr Bilal Ahmed disagreed with this assessment. “Yes, winter is low-transmission. Right now, we are in a high-transmission season and more cases will be reported as the environment is more favourable for the virus,” said Ahmed. “The vaccine is effective in all weather conditions.” Others associated with polio campaigns in the country confirmed the vaccine is indeed effective throughout the year.

As with many other vaccines, maintaining the cold-chain is key, but polio workers across Pakistan are provided with refrigerated units to carry the vials as they go door to door. In fact, the vaccine vials carry a sticker which changes colour to indicate the efficacy of the vaccine—light pink means it’s still effective but any darker or turning red means the polio vaccine is now rendered useless but it still would have no adverse reaction if administered at that point.

Referring to the “200 cases”, Ahmed said, “One cannot make exact estimates.” The UNICEF team leader admitted the situation was pretty bad, looking at the flip side of access to NWA children.

“Now the NWA cases are also moving to the southern districts like Lakki Marwat, Tank and Bannu, so those places are at greater risk.”

Ahmed said, “You can assume there will be more cases but you absolutely cannot make exact estimates. This is all situational; no one can guess how many cases.”

Number of doses needed

There is often confusion surrounding how the vaccine protects a person from the crippling virus; especially when children who have received doses contract the disease.

Ahmed explained each person has a different biology and one dose is never enough. Drawing parallels to how doctors prescribe a basic dose in any ailment and alter it according to progress made, Dr Ahmed said, “There is no exact number of doses [especially in high-risk areas] which will provide foolproof coverage.”

This is why repeated polio campaigns are conducted during outbreaks, said the doctor. Even at the airport, he said, a traveller is required to have had a dose of the vaccine within a month of their journey  as the vaccine blocks the poliovirus for roughly 30 days.

“You can give as many doses, there are no side effects. The more the number of campaigns, the safer the area.”

Explaining why some children are safe with fewer doses, Dr Ahmed said, “Everyone has different levels of immunity.” The polio vaccine will be rendered less effective if the child has diarrhoea or vomiting. The nutritional intake of the child also counts, said Ahmed.

“That is why we have repeated campaigns,” reiterated the doctor.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 12^th,2014.

In a population of nearly 200 million, these 207 children represent 0.0001035% making it easy for some to forget how a three-digit number has changed the lives of thousands, and continues to risk the lives of millions across the world.

They forget that roughly one in 200 polio infections lead to irreversible paralysis  while over 95% of children infected are asymptomatic,  or silent, infectors.

The world was quick to do the math and slapped travel restrictions on Pakistan. The latter briefly focused on polio before turning to numbers about protest crowds and ballot papers.

Sitting inside his office in Clifton, silver-haired Memon turns his focus on the topic which takes up most of his waking hours – polio.

“We always thought the last stumbling block for a polio free world would be India,” Aziz Memon, the national chair for Pakistan PolioPlus Committee, told The Express Tribune a few days before Pakistan’s count touched 194.

PolioPlus was initiated by Rotary in 1985 but it was preceded by Rotary’s pledge to provide oral polio vaccines to six million children in the Philippines in 1979. According to Memon, Rotary has so far spent $1.2 billion on polio prevention, including $105 million in Pakistan. Globally, Rotary has helped raise over $8 billion from the governments of the world, he added.

Memon wants to see the glass half full, after all he along with WHO and other stakeholders have spent decades pouring in efforts.

“Numbers should not be a problem, look at the bright side, we have eradicated poliovirus type 2 and 3,” he said. “We just need two good rounds with good results; coverage should be good, refusals should be less. Two good rounds and we will be done.”

Memon smiled, “Political will chahiyay hai; political will.”

The Muslim effect

Before India came to zero, “it had around 780 cases a year,” said Memon. “Then India got rid of polio from all the states of the south ten years before they were able to move from Bihar. India got stuck in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.”

“Various reasons – illiteracy, density of population, but,” Memon paused for effect, “the most (significant) factor was the resistance from Muslim groups.”

It was nothing like the Taliban, he said, referring to that organisation’s polio vaccination ban in Waziristan and constant attacks on polio vaccinators, one of which took place recently on October 10 in Mohmand Agency.

“It was soft resistance, not like the dedicated refusal we face here; hum samjha daitay thay, woh maan jatay thay.”

Outside of India, Rotary has been successful in eliminating polio from countries at war: allowing for ceasefires just to immunise children. So why not in Pakistan?

“The biggest thing to remember is that wars are of different types – ours is more savage,” said Memon. “The way they fight, their principles and the area.”

The use of perceived threats to cultural Islam to shore public support or make people believe they have a common enemy in the West is not limited to Pakistan.

According to a paper in the journal Global Public Health, five northern Nigerian states suspended the use of OPV in 2004 over “rumours endorsed by high-ranking public figures that OPV was an American conspiracy to spread HIV and cause infertility in Muslims.” The same paper links polio refusals in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and Fata in 2007 to similar misinformation spread through extremist clerics on their radio stations.

This gave the virus a new foothold in Pakistan, made worse in 2011 when Dr Shakil Afridi was associated with a fake vaccination campaign which helped catch Osama bin Laden.

“Dr Afridi didn’t have anything to do with polio,” added Memon, visibly frustrated with the dissemination of misinformation, partially attributed to a “lousy media”.

Talking about a man from Fata who had brought his paralysed 18-month-old son to Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar,  Memon lamented how the public can be misled.

In this particular case, Memon told the man  if  he had given just two drops, his son would have been walking. “The colour of his face just changed,” recalled Memon.

“He said, ‘What nonsense are you talking, are you God? It was written in his fate that he would suffer from this. How could you or I stop it?’”

However, by the end of that discussion, Memon had successfully convinced the father that protecting his child from polio was sound parenting, just like protecting him from a cold. The man walked away with regret, having learnt his son’s paralysis could not be cured.

“How many such individuals can you go tackle?” questioned the PolioPlus national chair. Rotary, UNICEF, WHO have all worked with local opinion leaders and held global  conventions advocating the benefits of immunisation but refusals persist.

In July, Ban Khalid Al-Dhayi, spokesperson of UNICEF Pakistan, told The Express Tribune there were at least 47,000 refusals. By September, according to some reports, refusals had only gone up.

Now the three remaining countries are Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Nigeria’s health minister is fully committed; the country has just six cases this year and not a single one over the last four months.”

Afghanistan is doing well, “very very well.” The few cases recorded there were genetically traced back to the reservoirs of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Fata, he added.

Coverage

Even with the TTP ban in place, Rotary and other agencies have persisted. After Operation Zarb-e-Azb, the otherwise inaccessible population of North Waziristan Agency was suddenly available.

“But the IDPs didn’t just remain in Bannu, they spread all over,” creating a bigger problem of containing the epidemic.

“Except for one in Sanghar, all cases are Pukhtun-linked.”

Sehat ka Insaf was a good thing, said Memon, “but the reservoir in Peshawar is still intact, from where the virus originates.” Consistency is key; “There has to be a follow-up, just getting a political leader to come and give two drops before he goes away to do other things just does not work.”

Though, it is good to have the political parties on board, even in Karachi, he said. “But the federal government needs to do more, they have to eradicate polio.”

The bureaucracy effect

“In 2012 we were almost done with polio; we had no cases in the first seven months. All the cases hovered along Fata and then linked to Taliban-controlled areas in Karachi, but the city didn’t have a single case.” Memon attributed it to a lack of security issues in the city; “We used to do health and cleaning camps in Gadap then.”

Memon added, “Prior to the 2013 elections, our government was fully committed; the national taskforce used to meet every three months, chaired by the prime minister,” said Memon.

Then, “the caretaker government came and rolled back the polio programme, closed the PM’s Polio Monitoring Cell – a big setback.” When the new government came in, they had a lot of issues to tackle, said Memon. “In fact even with so much pressure from Rotary and other donors, it took them nine months to appoint a polio focal person.”

Bureaucracy was in full bloom, he added, “They kept telling the government that polio was not such a big issue; only one PM polio taskforce meeting was called and lasted only 40 minutes,”

According to Memon, “Wherever we have eradicated polio, at the end of the day, ownership was with the government.”

Going back to India’s success story, he pointed out the country’s federal health minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad knew every last detail.

“With us, unfortunately the 18th Amendment has been a big blow to the health and education sector of Pakistan,” claimed Memon. “It was not very well thought of; we tried our best but the MNAs were so adamant that [devolution] is the right way. We gave them the example of 56 countries, where the health sector was with the provinces, but there was a federal health minister on top.”

Pakistan does not have that, so “donors don’t have such a system of giving to provinces. Now to camouflage that, they have created a ministry called the ministry of regulatory affairs which is a substitute for the health ministry.”

Responding to a question about the ministry headed by Saira Tarar, Memon said, “She can’t be called a minister of health,  they have yet to appoint a federal health minister.”

Memon said he met PM Nawaz Sharif just when he had taken oath, “I asked him one question – do you want Pakistan to be the last country to eradicate polio? History will write it down, I told.”

The PM’s response was No, said Memon.

“But Pakistan is the last now, beyond a doubt.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2014.

ISLAMABAD: Six-hundred kilogrammes of produce flown in from Europe was what it took to cater a two-day food festival organised by the Embassy of Belgium.

Chef Eric de Wagenaere started with a bistro in Ghent — Coeur d’Artichaut or the Heart of the artichoke. Now with six restaurants and more of a managerial role, Wagenaere had Chef Matthias Van Acker with him, a young lad whose blog on chefs-talk.com is all you need to know before you bite into what he’s plated.

From cheese to shrimp, the festival offered a variety of succulent dishes. PHOTOS: HUMA CHOUDHARY/EXPRESS

And he plated some pretty mean dishes for the capital.

For the Francophile, fromage is the course before dessert, for the Anglophile, it’s the last thing to be had with port (for the Belgians too). For the Karachiite in Islamabad, the cheese counter was the first stop to a food coma.

But the blue cheese infused with herbs and a Gouda-like texture justified the break from food protocol. So was the Passandale, made by Christian monks who also make their own beer. Wagenaere told The Express Tribune the cheese is also often paired with beverage. The semi-soft cheese also has the honour of being the oldest cheese in Belgium.

To please the Pakistani palate, the hotel had erred on the side of caution by adding desi-ised things to the menu. But Wagenaere was quick to help navigate the confusing set-up with few food labels or knowledgeable waiters.

One forkful of the grey shrimp salad was an eye-opener; miniscule shrimp in a zestful dressing with halved sweet tomatoes. The shrimp was succulent, a bit more fishy in flavour than local variety. And they are caught on horseback, actual Flemmish horses dredge them from the North Sea beaches when the water recedes.

From cheese to shrimp, the festival offered a variety of succulent dishes. PHOTOS: HUMA CHOUDHARY/EXPRESS

“They are best had at the beach, boiled in saltwater,” said Wagenaere.

The waterzooi (water mess), a staple Ghent dish, also comes with a story.

The light stew was made with fish before World War II. The war polluted the inlets which make their way into Ghent, forcing locals to switch to chicken, now the popular meat. Wagenaere’s waterzooi was a tantalizing ‘mess’ in the mouth. A soft, white sauce which screamed lick me up and don’t look back at the calories.

However, the winning recipe was the mussels. Whether it was the novelty of fresh mussels or the lovely brothy, oniony aftertaste, these clams should travel east more often.

Perhaps the dessert which had the most expectations attached to it was the least exciting. Not to belittle the chocolate fondant or mousse but the apple pie was the best last bite of the day. Belgium anyone?

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th, 2014.

PESHAWAR: When your father earns Rs300 to 400 a day and has a family of six, it does not matter how young you are or how dangerous the field; you work. Cold poverty is what prompted 18-year-old Sajjid to participate in vaccination campaigns in between attending tenth grade in Charsadda district.

Shoes lined the doorway of Lady Reading Hospital’s (LRH) intensive care unit (ICU). A sombre group stood inside, supporting one man with their collective silence.

“No one expects such things will happen to them,” said Shah Jehan, Sajjid’s father who was standing in the waiting area outside the ICU where the teenager is fighting for his life after being shot on Monday during an immunisation campaign in Shabqadar. Even under current circumstances, he spoke with a smile but his worry rested in the lines on his face.

“His mother worried about his volunteering for health campaigns but no one can expect this.”  Shah Jehan owns and drives a Suzuki pickup, and two of his other sons also work. They seek daily labour after school hours.

Unfortunately for Sajjid, the fruit of his labour—Rs700 per campaign—was never within reach. According to Katozai Medical Officer Dr Hidayatullah and EPI Technician Shafiullah, Sajjid had not been paid for one measles campaign, and four polio campaigns (two in November and one each in January and February). The teen had been part of more than 8 to ten campaigns, confirmed Shafiullah, indicating his need to earn.

Both men were stumped as the topic of payments took centre stage—a problem of old and yet unsolved. There were explanations which linked together the government and the United Arab Emirates as being responsible behind the abysmal breach of implicit contract. Polio campaigns in Peshawar have also been delayed of late because of similar stories of health workers who had not been paid by the donors through the government.

For health workers and volunteers, even if the paymaster changes, their problems of non-payment remain unchanged, as does the risk to their lives.

A vigil of love

The bullet that hit Sajjid, as he was out with a social worker to inoculate and protect children from the poliovirus, pierced through his back and exited from his face, said a Lady Reading Hospital spokesperson.  Sajjid was out of surgery by Monday afternoon but was still in a highly critical state by dusk—hospital officials were unwilling to comment further on his state.

Asif Khan, the area in charge who was with him at the time of the attack, was pushed to the ground by one of two assailants on a motorcycle, but was lucky enough to avoid getting shot. Asif’s father, EPI technician Shafiullah, was also pacing in the waiting area. Fear of a future attack robbed the father’s relief at having his son among the living.

What about security

“The only security was naka bandi,” said Dr Hidayatullah. “As per plan, now there are no policemen escorting polio teams door to door,” something he was clearly unhappy about.

Cordoning off an area and manning entry and exit points only works in urban centres with non-porous lines, said the medical officer. “It’s not possible in rural areas where there are so many points of entry.”

Hesitating before he spoke, he added, “This would have not happened if they had proper security, with policemen walking with the teams.”

Published in The Express Tribune, November 26^th, 2014.

On the surface, Peshawar is acclimated to bomb attacks — the city witnessed 39 blasts up until November this year according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal. For a city which goes boom by the hour, unless frantic sirens follow and the death counter careens towards double digits, it seems perfectly okay to turn over in bed and go back to sleep after an attack.

However, what is less obvious at first glance is that the resting rate of the city has changed — the heart does not beat 60 or 80 times per minute but pounds in synchronicity with the reverberations of the blasts. This seems even truer for the 600-odd nurses at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) — the default hospital for all emergencies in the city — who watch over the city of flowers, their green thumb weeding out the bullets, snipping off the gangrene and building armatures and grafts for broken bones. As four senior LRH nurses recall their run-in with death and suffering in the wake of a blast, the effect of these traumatic experiences can be seen in their posture, gesticulations and the lines under their eyes. 

When terror strikes

“When a blast happens, the patients come straight to our casualty trauma room,” explains Nasreen Qayyum, the head nurse who has been working at the LRH since 1979. The trauma room is where the bulk of the aid is dispensed: first aid, IVs and even on-the-spot X-rays. As nurses triage patients, those in critical condition are sent onwards to surgery or the relevant ward. “We see the patient’s condition, how serious it is and treat them accordingly until they stablise or refer them onwards,” adds another nurse, Gulshanara. The trauma ward has at least five beds along with some space in the basement but victims are also shifted to regular wards in emergency situations. “We have even accommodated hundreds here [during catastrophic events] — that’s when we resort to doubling,” explains Nasreen, referring to the practice of having more than one patient on one hospital bed.

Nurses taking a break from their gruelling shift at the LRH.PHOTO: HALIMA MANSOOR

An injured being rushed to the hospital after the All Saints Church attack. PHOTO: MUHAMMAD IQBAL

As senior nurses, organising things is as important as the work inside the trauma room, reminds Gulshanara. “Three of us remain on duty, one runs to the hostel to summon the girls, while someone gets on the phone to call in off-duty staff,” she adds. The information is also passed on to the zone supervisor and department heads so they can send in more help towards the emergency room. The matron or head nurse usually has a list in advance of who to call and inform during such stressful times. The acting nurse Sumbal Firdous adds that most of the health care professionals rush to the hospital as soon as they hear the news, leaving their own families in the care of others.

When a blast occurs, it’s the ‘girls’ — the nursing staff of the lower cadres, even the ones who are off-duty — who spring into motion. “They don’t have to be told [as the nursing hostel has a bell],” says Gulshanara. “It does not matter to them if they just completed a double shift or if they are at home. None of them will ever say, ‘It isn’t my turn.’” And in those moments, it does not matter if you are a veteran nurse or just an impressionable freshman year trainee 

Last breath, first blast

Everyone remembers their first blast. The shock sucks all the noise from the air and only the anxious thud of the heart reverberates against the eardrum. “Wudoodsons, in 1993, was my first. I was a second year nurse,” recalls Nuzzat Aslam, the charge nurse for one of the hospital blocks. “A lot of people died and many were burnt.” The senior nurses who have worked through some of the worst blood baths Peshawar has seen also take trainees through their ‘firsts’. Nasreen recalls the time when the victims from an attack on the Frontier Corps (FC) were brought to the LRH. One of the FC personnel accompanying the victims was suffering from an aftershock and opened fire inside the hospital. “The nursing students with me were petrified and wanted to flee. I asked them, ‘If we run, who will give the patients courage?’” she says. When Nasreen ran into one of those students a few years later and asked her why she looked familiar, the girl replied, “I am the same girl you calmed down that day with the FC, baji. I am no longer scared of things,” she narrates with a smile.

An ambulance parked outside LRH, which is the default hospital for all emergencies. PHOTO: MUHAMMAD IQBAL

Coffins lined up inside the storage area at the LRH. PHOTO: HALIMA MANSOOR

Both young and older nurses might conquer their fear but the memories leave a mark for a long time. The blast at Kohati Chowk took place in 2009 but Gulshanara still remembers it as if it was yesterday. “I stepped into the basement of the trauma ward and they were all in a line with white sheets resting on them… Death lined up,” says Gulshanara. “My heart just stopped.” As nurses and loved ones picked up each sheet to identify the deceased they came across multiple mutilated bodies. The blast also claimed the lives of many children, which are one of the hardest deaths to deal with for the nurses. “They were lying in gurneys in the casualty ward, with different parts of their bodies torn or bloodied,” says Gulshanara. “We stitched them up and sent them home to their parents. But to see those kids, wearing their nice shoes… Their parents had sent them to school in the morning and instead, a dead body is returned home.”

There is a consensus among the nurses that families frantic in search of their loved ones are the biggest challenge at the time of an emergency. “We can’t control the people. We can’t scold or push them away,” says Sumbal. The only way to handle them is subterfuge. Nuzzat recalls the story of Shahzeb, who died in a blast outside a school in Nothia. “His father, who was also injured, was hysterical looking for him.” She had no other option but to lie to him about his son being alive so that he would allow them to tend to his own critical wounds. The family member is only informed once another relative arrives at the hospital or the body of the deceased is sent home. 

The legion of white

As the nurses spoke of tending to the dead and injured, it becomes clear that their first and most predominant reaction is fight not flight — not for their own well-being but for others. But the idea of nurses seeking help or counselling for their own trauma seems to be an alien one. According to Chief Nurse Superintendent Gulshan, there is a psychiatry unit at the hospital and “nurses can talk to the doctors there” but that doesn’t really happen.

The entrance to the emergency department at LRH. PHOTO: HALIMA MANSOOR

Experts say that health care professionals in Peshawar who are repeatedly exposed to incidents which can trigger stress reactions are at risk of damaging their coping mechanisms and functionality. But with a complete lack of awareness about stress disorders and their symptoms, these nurses are not even equipped with the vocabulary to identify psychological trauma, let alone seeking help. Unbeknownst to them, it is their words and quiet tears which give them away. Gulshanara talks about how she would “start crying in the middle of random conversations as the memories [of families trying to identify bodies] would resurface.” Nasreen also has a similar story to share. “I try to support the girls and give them comfort, though at first I used to cry all the time.”

Ajmal Kazmi, a senior psychiatric consultant at Karavan-e-Hayat, Karachi, identifies nurses as a high-risk group for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) along with people hidden in plain sight such as the janitorial staff or ward assistants at hospitals. “They must have PTSD but there is no system or criteria developed based on a local understanding,” he says referring to how ill-equipped the country is to deal with mental health issues. The current criterion for PTSD has been built on Western studies and there is a desperate need for a study that tailors them according to local realities. However, according to Kazmi, even in its current applicability the criterion would apply to many of these nurses.

“After traumatic events, people need to be debriefed about ways to cope with stress and shock — [which includes] everyone from first responders to the general public,” says Kazmi, adding that early diagnosis is key while prevention is even better. “This is a global practice to equip people with the tools that can help prevent PTSD.” He elaborates that creating awareness amongst the general public regarding the stress disorder can help millions. “Early diagnosis, medication and family support can help patients of PTSD recover well,” he says.

The strong medico-legal structures in place in Western countries allow patients with stress disorders to claim compensation. However, Kazmi points out that if one of the nurses here wanted to sit at home and get treatment, they cannot afford to shed the role of the breadwinner. “But if you work in a place where the triggers are constant — recurrent incidents are what cause it — a breaking point will come.” And eventually, the chain of PTSD will affect both personal and professional life.

However, the battles that these nurses are fighting on a daily basis are not limited to terror or trauma. The senior nurses feel the younger ones are not treated fairly by the government. Nasreen cites the example of the scholarship money promised to them which was increased from Rs3,500 to Rs5,000 late last year. “I ask you, ‘has your child ever woken up in the middle of the night and run barefoot to help someone?’ Is the value of that Rs5,000?” she says. The nurses say the cost of books and uniforms alone can eat through the scholarship funds.

New staff nurses get a slightly better deal as they come in on grade 16 and can avail family health care, pension and a conveyance allowance. “Are these girls less human because they come from Chitral or Buner?” says Nasreen. “Or have they become less human or less worthy by wearing these white uniforms.” One of them comments that the former health minister Shaukat Yousafzai (removed from his post after this interview) — who claims to not know anything about their troubles — should spend a day with them and see what they need.

In sickness and in health

“Zindagi ko agar bohat qareeb seh dekhna hai toh aap emergency mein aa jain jis din dhamaka ho (If you want to experience life closely, come to the emergency ward when a blast takes place),” says Nuzzat as she narrates the story of a desperate mother searching for her son.“And you know you just saw the dead body but you keep a stiff upper lip and swear to her that you just dressed his wounds and sent him off, only so she doesn’t have a heart attack,” she elaborates. “As you see her fall to her knees, thanking God for keeping her son safe, you might see the dough that she forgot to wash off her hands because she left her house in such a hurry after receiving news of the blast.”

What might be seen by most as one of the toughest jobs in the country is considered an act of worship by these nurses. “It is a blessing from Allah that he has given us the courage to be here and tend to victims,” says Sumbal. “Otherwise, no one can see fellow humans in such states,” adds Nasreen. “Kiyun ke jab aap gosht khud boriyon mein bhar keh band kar rahay hotay hai, aur kafan dhar-a-dhar phaar rahay hotay hain… Woh dekh dekh ke, insaan khud pagal ho sakta hai (Because when you stuff bodies in sacks and tear shroud regularly… Those things can drive you crazy).” In these moments, it is their faith in God and humanity that keeps these nurses rooted.

“Humanity means to tolerate everyone, even your enemy,” adds Nasreen. But the enemy in their case appears to be playing by completely different rules.

Halima Mansoor is a senior subeditor on The Express Tribune Peshawar desk. She tweets @hmansoor

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, December 14^th, 2014.

KARACHI: A few neighbourhoods in the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) have been lit up to celebrate Eid Miladun Nabi (pbuh), making it one of the rare occasions when the area geared up for such a celebration.

The roundabouts, where Khayaban-e-Shahbaz intersects with Commercial Avenue and where 26th Street meets Khayaban-e-Badar, have been decked up in green, gold and red strings of bulbs.

DHA representative Major Aurangzeb explained that the lights come under the jurisdiction of Cantonment Board Clifton (CBC). It was Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) that sought permission to light the main thoroughfare, said CBC spokesperson Amir. “KESC (sic) has subsidised it [light connections] for the group.”

Later, the ASWJ representative Omar Mawia denied putting up the lights and it turned out it was Dawat-e-Islami, a non-political movement for the propagation of the Holy Quran and Sunnah, according to its website.

Concession in times of debt

A K-Electric spokesperson confirmed to The Express Tribune that they were approached by Faizan-e-Madina, the global headquarters for Dawat-e-Islami, located in Karachi.

“The religious group Faizan-e-Madina has taken the task of lighting up Karachi, not just Defence,” he said. “And we are offering them a heavily subsidised tariff of Rs5 per unit.” The spokesperson explained that the commercial tariff is Rs26 per unit but they are offering a subsidy. Officials at both Faizan-e-Madina and K-Electric confirmed these details are on paper.

The K-Electric official explained that the subsidy is meant to be a deterrent for ‘kunda’ connections. “For such religious events, we encourage them to use legal connections at the subsidised rates,” he said. Considering that most organisations usually put the illegal electricity connections without informing the utlity, K-Electric said they offered a subsidy as this group approached them first.

“We told them we would help you guys out,” said the spokesperson. Their teams visited the locations in DHA, Saddar, Bahadurabad and other places. They planned the installation of each light, decided how to distribute the load on the PMTs and then installed it for them,” said the spokesperson. “We aren’t saying this particular group uses kundas but most of them would just go ahead and hook up a connection illegally,” he clarified. “We are promoting a culture of ‘come to us and do not use illegal connections’.”

The small lights dotting these roads are, however, taking a fair share of the electricity load. For example, a 500-yard house that has air-conditioners and several lights uses up on average a load of two to three kilowatts (KW). The lights at the roundabouts, set up for over 10 to 12 days, are using up more than 200KW in DHA alone, estimated the K-Electric official.

For their part, Dawat-e-Islami also claimed to have used subsidised connections to convince people that using ‘kunda’ connections is a sin. A lot of people approached the organisation to light up various neighbourhoods so the representatives approached K-Electric and managed to get a discount, said a spokesperson. “We told them it is a sin to steal. If you’re doing it for Islam, then do not steal.”

Every time a group approaches them to deck up their streets for Eid Miladun Nabi (pbuh), the organisation draws up an agreement with K-Electric on behalf of the residents. “Bilawal Masjid, Bath Island, Teen Talwar, all of Defence, thanks to the Almighty, there are lights everywhere,” said the Dawat-e-Islami representative, adding that each area has a bill that mentions the date and time when the lights went up.

The CBC officials are, however, not comfortable about the lights dotting the streets given the recent tragedy in Peshawar. “We sent a letter taking back our permission to put up the lights, asking the group to take them off,” said an official, adding that they cited ‘electricity issue’ as the reason to take down the lights. When their notice went unheeded, the CBC decided to let it be.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2015.

A month ago, 150 people — mostly children — were ruthlessly sought out and shot dead in APS. As the school welcomes back its survivors, the entire landscape has changed.

After every third or fourth vehicle carrying children dressed in the now iconic green jackets, an army patrol vehicle can be seen with a soldier standing on top, his weapon aiming at nothing in particular. At a short distance from the main gate, drivers are stopped by a brusque army officer — no vehicles beyond this point. Children and their accompanying adults slowly walk the few metres which marked the difference between life and death on December 16 for those who went inside and those who stayed home.

Day one at APS saw the reassuring army chief greeting children at the gate; day two and beyond, the students are met by four men in khakis. Parents and guardians are allowed to see children off till the main gates, the walls next to which have been raised taller. The goodbyes are hushed and the walk back to the car for the parents borders on bravado, betrayed by a last look at the closed gates.

Once inside, the children are obviously happy to see each other but not all are as confident about being in the same space again. “In the car, my nephew asked me, ‘It won’t happen again, right?’” says one man as he dropped a child at the school. “I told him, ‘So what if it happens again?’” This is the answer for times when children are told to stand up to such terror. “I cannot hide them from death; the time of death is predetermined,” other parents say.

Some even say they would give up their child to fight this war begotten by adults.

Turning grief

Waliur Rehman has two sons in grade eight and grade nine at APS. The students of grade eight, nine and 10 were the ones inside the auditorium where children had hidden under bodies of their classmates or had played dead to avoid a bullet to the head on December 16. Even so, Rehman insists his sons are not scared to return to school. “Their mother wanted to take the kids out of the school but, I said we will keep them here and that was that,” he added.

When asked if there should be someone to blame, Rehman, a serviceman himself, says, “If you think about who to blame — we knew the operation in the agencies would have consequences, but the slaughter of children…”

Rehman did have a perfect opportunity to put the question of blame to the man leading the armed forces a day prior; “Some people did ask Raheel Sharif, who do we blame, who do we take to task?” he says. However, Rehman would not discuss this further, smack in front of the school manned by men of his service.

Another student’s relative — a government employee — spoke in more detail about the chief of army staff’s visit to APS. “Raheel met each child and told them, “Ghabrao nahi’.” Even the parents of children who died were there, happy to meet the army chief, he adds.

Some parents had been invited to APS on the first day after it buried over 130 of its own. While others preferred to grieve in private, there were those who did not want to see their child’s involuntary sacrifice go in vain. “I want my second son [also an APS student] to join the army and take revenge,” said one mother who lost a son.

The city’s soft underbelly

Individually securing all soft targets like hospitals is logistically impossible. Even the terror-struck APS looked as vulnerable as the next building, despite increased fortification. Four army men keep a vigilant eye at the school’s gate while the school wall follows the road going towards Bihar Colony for approximately 300 metres. The recently patched up wall is topped by shiny rolls of barbed wire. Only one CCTV camera could be seen pointing at the start of the residential area. All lights remained pointed inwards, at the school.

There is a second entrance to APS, barricaded and manned by one soldier with his attention diverted to the cars immediately in front of him. Across the road, there are many small temporary settlements, a sprawling graveyard and next to no infrastructure such as street lights. Warsak Model School also lies in the vicinity, with one entrance on the same unlit road going towards the colony.

Where the APS wall ends, Bihar Colony explodes with its congested construction, shops and foot traffic. Shopkeepers here told The Express Tribune both army officials and the police had asked people here to fill out forms, with the names of residents, copies of their CNICs and details of cars owned and cars which visit them. However, this information does not appear to be considered a high priority as the colony’s residents had left the forms with the shopkeepers, for the police to come and collect.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2015. 

KARACHI: In a letter issued on Friday, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s (K-P) Senior Minister for Health, Shahram Tarakai, confirmed the details of Sehat ka Ittehad, a vaccination campaign jointly devised by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led governments. 

Though meant to eradicate nine vaccine-preventable diseases, the decision for renewed efforts come in the wake of a record-breaking 303 polio cases in 2014 and persistent measles’ outbreaks.

The communiqué was addressed to Minister for State National Health Services, Saira Afzal Tarar, and PM Focal Person for Polio Ayesha Raza Farooq. It laid out the decisions taken in an apex committee meeting on Thursday by K-P Governor Sardar Mehtab Abbasi, K-P Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak, K-P IGP Nasir Khan Durrani, the Fata additional chief secretary and Peshawar Corps Commander Lieutenant General Hidayatur Rehman.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Tarakai said there were still many technicalities which would be ironed out in the near future. The letter itself confirms that the joint initiative will be carried out in the districts of Peshawar, Charsadda, Mardan, Swabi, Nowshera, Karak, Kohat, Hangu, DI Khan, Bannu, Tank and Lakki Marwat; Frontier Region (FR) Bannu and FR Tank; and Khyber, North and South Waziristan agencies (NWA, SWA). “These 14 areas constitute about 88 per cent of the global polio cases—248 out of 303 cases are from these areas,” a senior PTI official who has worked on both Sehat ka Insaf and Ittehad campaigns had told The Express Tribune on Thursday.

Simultaneous action

“Approximately, three million children from K-P and 300,000 from Fata will be vaccinated under Sehat ka Ittehad,” said Tarakai. The campaign — which is to start in February — will be undertaken in all 14 areas simultaneously. “The governor’s desire was to hold it all together, and we agreed,” added Tarakai.

The plan is to cordon off the 14 blocks and immunise children with the support of the police. With the exception of one round of inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV), the rest will be orally administered doses of the polio vaccine, said the K-P health minister.

“Robust communication and social mobilisation strategies, especially designed in context of local socio-cultural backgrounds, and Pukhtun dominant population shall be there to support operational aspects,” reads the letter. It goes on to add that the K-P government will work in close coordination with Tarar’s ministry, the National Emergency Operation Centre, the World Health Organization, and Unicef.

For the children

While the original initiative was fielded by PTI leaders, Sehat ka Ittehad comes at a time when allegations of vote fixing and resignations have dominated the narrative between ruling parties at the Centre and K-P.

“The future of our children is above politics,” said Tarakai. “Politics have been set aside; this has never happened before.” After the 18the Amendment, he said, “We could have done it alone but why work in silos?” Lauding Governor Mehtab, the Peshawar corps commander and CM Khattak, Tarakai said all three representatives have been very positive about working together.

The provincial minister from Awami Jamhoori Ittehad Pakistan added, “We might have different stances and might stand on containers, but for the future of our children, we will do anything.”

The Fata Secretariat, the provincial government, the centre and the Pakistan Army are all partners in this initiative, the Secretariat’s spokesperson told The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th, 2015.

What happened in Army Public School (APS) Peshawar on December 16, 2014 is no less than a traumatic event witnessed in a war setting, say psychologists and psychiatrists. Schoolchildren across the country are experiencing fear as threats continue to emerge in different cities.  Parents are reporting children who survived the APS massacre are displaying low-levels of interest in going back to school and in other activities.

Earlier, Tufail Ahmad, father of slain APS student Sher Shah and surviving grade eight student Ahmad Shah, told The Express Tribune that children are still scared. Ahmad has lost his interest in studying or going to school, said Tufail. “Since school reopened, he has only gone twice and seems distracted. He lost his elder brother and around 30 friends in the attack. He tells me every time he enters the school he is reminded of them and cannot concentrate on lessons,” added Tufail.

The swiftness of the government’s response to this end suggests there is an understanding of the urgent need to help the survivors. As yet the government has started setting up a Child Trauma Centre at the psychiatry department of Lady Reading Hospital, announced foreign trips for children who survived and the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) Peshawar distributed brochures of mental health guidelines among the parents of APS students.

However, those who are currently dealing with APS survivors claim a lot more needs to be done a lot faster. One APS survivor’s father Manzoor* told The Express Tribune he decided not to wait for any government intervention and initially sent all his children for psychological help. His son was in close vicinity to the terrorists while they were shooting and he still shies away from talking about it with his family, said the father.

“But we knew something was wrong, he would act disturbed; he started saying he was ‘Super Man’ that he was ‘bullet-proof’ and could save all the children,” said Manzoor. “We asked him if he wanted to change his school but he said no, so instead we got him help.”

 “Manmade or natural, all disasters cause (psychological) disruptions; anxiety rockets, there will be depression and people will feel insecure,” Peshawar based psychologist Shahnaz Sanagul told The Express Tribune. She acknowledged the government’s plan is still in its initial stages and encourages parents to look towards other avenues to seek help for their children.

“There will be a reaction; some will take time in recovering and some will do it soon,” she explained. “That is why I urge parents of APS survivors to send their children to therapy soon. The sooner you get to a therapist, the higher the chance of recovery.” Often, “the one month period after [a traumatic event of this scale] is grief reaction; even if the person did not directly lose someone,” she said.

Counselling APS survivors

The first reaction for most children, according to Sanagul, is denial. “They don’t want to talk about it.”

Some of her young patients from APS were still in that stage. “They would say hua hai, koi bari baat nahi, that nothing big happened,” said Sanagul. “But their parents would report that the child is asking questions which reflect deep-set fear.”

She explained the fear remains if there is no cathartic process, “if you don’t offer therapy; the family can only do so much other than lend an ear.”

“PTSD takes time in manifesting; it builds up over a few weeks before the symptoms really hit a person.”

What to keep an eye out for

According to Sanagul, parents should keep an eye out for the following symptoms post APS attack or any other major trauma:

• Hyper arousal, irrational fear. “Children might jump at small

   sounds, associating them with the incident.”

• Irritability, outbursts, rage and fits of stubbornness

• Isolation, attempts to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic

   event, including avoiding places and people who trigger the memory

• Bed wetting, disturbed sleep and/or nightmares

• Digestive problems stemming from anxiety

• A reduced appetite

How to deal with potential PTSD

After counselling APS survivors, Sanagul said she reached out to the parents so the child has an environment at home conducive to healing.

“Parents tend to shame the child which makes the patient retreat more; instead, calm the child, distract them with tasks, take time out for them and make them understand what they are feeling is entirely natural,” recommended Sanagul.

“You have to encourage talking; this helps prevent the child from suppressing memories.” Children will blank out bits or claim they have forgotten what happened, she said. “It is because they don’t want to recall; these things have to be drawn out of them gently. Let them speak and hear them carefully.”

When children display rage, many parents tend to ask, “why is my child acting out, he wasn’t like this,” said the psychologist. “Instead of punishing or snubbing this behaviour, we recommend both positive and negative reinforcement alongside dialogue.”

If all these symptoms persist for over a month, Sanagul says in all likelihood the survivor has PTSD.

For some of her patients, Sanagul recommended a break from television and other outlets of news as images of the attack on APS can trigger episodes or manifestations of PTSD.

“The psychologist told us to keep our son occupied with positive activities; anything but television,” shared Manzoor. “He keeps busy with games after his homework.”

Desensitisation and exposure

Some therapists use exposure therapy in which PTSD patients are taught how to slowly and repeatedly approach cognitions and situations related to the traumatic event using relaxation techniques.

Sanagul says desensitisation is also a helpful approach whereby the patient gradually works up to facing the most traumatic or distressing triggers.

How does going to school impact the survivors of APS? Sanagul says in part, if this is a controlled activity, it can be a positive step in dealing with trauma.

“One step of desensitisation is exposure to the site,” she explains. “If for example we don’t send them back to school for a year, they will hold on to the same psychological condition, the same memories and fears.”

Going back to school will help but not if it is unmonitored, says Sanagul. “They need to be equipped with tools which give them control when they go back to ground zero. You have to teach them breathing techniques and other tips so he can calm himself down.”

For smaller children, she recommends involving them in play.

“When the child goes back, the fear reduces slowly, desensitisation takes place and eventually the child will overcome the fear, the anxiety.”

*Name changed to protect privacy

What is PTSD?

PTSD is triggered when an individual “experiences or witnesses the traumatic event in person; learns the event occurred to someone close; experiences first-hand repeated or extreme exposure to details of the event (not through media),” states the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition.

The psychological disturbance caused significantly impairs social and professional capabilities and functionality. Other causes like a comorbid medical condition, substance abuse or medication have to be ruled out for the diagnosis of PTSD.

The DSM-V states individuals must have symptoms from four clusters: Re-experiencing, avoidance, negative thoughts (blame, estrangement and inability to recall event details) and arousal (aggression, sleep disturbance or hypervigilance).

According to the US Department of Veteran Affairs, PTSD in children does not result in the same manifestations as it does with adults.  Children might not have flashbacks or omit part of the traumatic memory, but they will confuse the order of events. “They also look for signs for the traumatic event to repeat itself as that convinces them they might be able to avoid it in future,” says the VA site. Pre-teens can also keep repeating the trauma in their play. Such games are not cathartic, adds the site.

Symptoms in teens resemble those of adults. However, teenagers are likely to show symptoms of arousal such as impulsive and aggressive behaviours.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 9^th, 2015.

The post APS survivors and PTSD: Parents urged to ‘get help’ instead of waiting on govt to help children appeared first on The Express Tribune.

KARACHI / PESHAWAR: The bond between parent and child is considered more powerful than any other relationship to be later forged in life.  Even the most brittle parent-child bond is scaffolded by something almost innate. Some see it as paternal instinct, others call it the drive to replicate the gene pool, to ensure continuity.

When over 150 families lost a child, a sibling or a parent in the Army Public School attack, every parent in the country felt that grief which jabs a person deep in the gut, the grief which is so much more than empathy as it comes with an overwhelming fear – that could be my child next. Four months and 24 days later, life has moved on for most consumers of the 24/7 news cycle. This Mother’s Day will honour the woman who was a mother to her three children and then some hundreds of students till she died on December 16, 2014.

This interview was conducted in two parts, in Peshawar and over the telephone.

Inside the Qazi house

January 17, 2015 and it’s just over a month since the brutal attack. Ahmad Qazi, 25, sits in the foyer, a small but meticulous sitting room in shades of beige. There is a quiet calm about him, as if he knows these measured movements will help quell the turmoil. He is expecting the questions as he has already been through at least one other interview.

Tahira and Colonel (retd) Qazi

He dives right into the life of Tahira. And as he talks about her earlier years, it is clear from the onset that Tahira was an understated powerhouse of a woman – a driven educationist, a mother, a friend, a wife, a caregiver and someone who managed the house impeccably.

The woman who had it all

With Ahmad, her daughter Arifa and her son Imran, and a husband who is a serviceman, Tahira could have opted for the army life many are known to enjoy. Staying at home could have been the easy way out, especially as Imran was oxygen deprived at birth and suffered brain damage. But Tahira, as her daughter later described to The Express Tribune over the telephone, was “an independent and practical woman” with an infinite amount of patience. She was after all the principal of an all boys school and college.

Tahira (second from the left) during college days.

Sitting in the living room, the symmetrical décor of which spoke volumes of life in the armed forces, Ahmad said she would “teach wherever baba was stationed; that’s how her career started”.

Tahira started working as early as the 70s. Her son struggles with details of her early career as Ahmad was born two decades after she started teaching. “I don’t know so much as we never got a chance to discuss it.”

However, he said, she had been teaching at APS for 20 years. “She started as an English teacher before she became an associate professor and later the vice principal.” He added, “She even became a regional coordinator but chose not to remain in that role as she wanted to give Imran more time.”

Later Arifa, 33, who now lives and works in Lahore, shared her mother left her career midway for Imran, who is 31 years old; “she chose to be an at-home mum but returned to teaching in the 80s.”

Tahira took over as principal of APS in 2006, and according to both Ahmad and Arifa, her school was her second home. “It would be incorrect to say her attitude was different with us and different with them; she used to care for them like they were her own children,” said Ahmad. “The day the tragedy happened, she did not call home; she took care of her students.”

As people came in to offer condolences, Ahmad said, “We have been hearing a lot of stories and have managed to piece together one conclusion – she fought bravely and saved lives.”

Ahmad Qazi with his mother on Eid in 2008

Other people who gave interviews to The Express Tribune about the horrors which unfolded that day also match this account: Tahira Qazi chose to stay back in the school which was under attack and tried to save her students.

“She was there evacuating students who were stuck inside. She even confronted the terrorists and told them to take her phone and whatever else they wanted ‘but leave the kids alone’.” Her son shares they (the attackers) asked her for the children one more time but she refused. “She was heard telling the men she cannot handover the children and asked them to stop the massacre…those who heard this exchange then heard nothing for a moment and then a blast. She was in the administration block.”

Even as Ahmad narrated his mother’s last minutes, he spoke as if he knew nothing could have changed the tragic ending. “She was evacuated but she went back in.”

When asked if he was angry at her for not leaving for safety, Ahmad smiled, “If she was destined to go that day, she would have gone no matter where she was. She chose a better death and I am proud of her. If she was meant to, she could have survived a hail of bullets – after all 26 people out of 29 survived in the administration block.”

(L-to-R) Ahmad Qazi, Colonel (retd) Qazi, Arifa, Tahira and Imran

In any case, Tahira was not the one to leave her children behind. Arifa later told The Express Tribune over the telephone from Lahore, “She would usually not leave school till the last child had not gone home. She was worried about kidnappings because such things happen in Peshawar.”

The principal had staff assigned to keep check on students, to see if they were going home in the car which would normally come to pick them up. Ahmad had shared, “If anyone was left behind, she would wait till their parents came to pick them up.”

Talking about Tahira meant for her children talking about her work as much as her life at home. “She was so close to her students; one of her former students came over for condolences and was telling us how he flunked his pre-board Urdu exam and how my mother petitioned on his behalf and then personally tutored him, asking other teachers to do the same to make sure he got good grades,” recalled her son from the days immediately after the funeral.

Her daughter talked of her quietly fundraising on the side for students who needed the extra help to afford the fees or books. “She would just put the money together without making a big fuss about it, I think she felt talking about it would take away from the good that she intended to do,” shared Arifa.

Tahira’s commitment to the job was not an extension of some habit; it was part of her core, values which permeated all tangents of her life.

“She was everywhere, she made sure the house was in order even though she was a working woman, and she never ever let on if she was tired,” said Ahmad. “I would come home from college or work and even then she never spoke about her problems.” Now Ahmad and Arifa are not sure if anyone can ever step in and fill her shoes.

It wasn’t as if Tahira was cold or reserved with her children. She also wasn’t the typical principal disciplinarian but was “the backbone of the family”. As Arifa puts it, “In other families, responsibilities are divided between family members; with us it was all mum’s responsibility.” Like so many women in Pakistan, Tahira would put her needs on the backburner, something her daughter says they would often argue about.

Arifa with her parents at her mehendi in 2011

The little time Tahira found was in the evening, and with her neatly distributed life, she had another routine built into it, a busy tea time. Family and friends would drop by, recalled Arifa and we would sit at the table for ages, eating and talking. Her handful of friends were important to her and she was happy with that, added the daughter.

“The day it happened, I kept thinking everything would be okay by tea time, that we would all soon be sitting around the table, discussing the day,” said Arifa as her voice trailed off.

Tahira the mother

The night before the APS attack, Ahmad said, “She was sitting with me and I was annoying her with my hugs, now I wonder if that was me saying goodbye unknowingly.”

He added, “She was my best friend.”

Imran who was still accepting his mother’s loss was also very strong and brave, said Ahmad. Only time will tell how he will deal with it in the future.

Arifa who is nine years Ahmad’s senior had a different relationship with their mother. While Ahmad was nurtured and nudged in the right direction, kept a close eye on and put on a guided track to success, Arifa was the first child and a wild one at that.

(L-to-R) Tahira, her husband with Imran and Arifa in Quetta

But, she told The Express Tribune, even though she was daddy’s little girl, it was her mother who became the driving force in her life. “He pampered me but he was away a lot, so I spent most of my childhood with my mum. Imran who has special needs came around later – in some ways I felt like I was the only child.”

She added, “But because she wasn’t the hugging and kissing type—instead she did things for us—I think I misunderstood bibi, as a child.” When asked about the nickname, Arifa said, “All of us from my mum’s side call our mothers bibi – one day my daughter will also call me bibi.”

She recalled days when she would come home late, hang out with boys and shared Tahira was very patient. “She would always give me advice, not a shouting. That was who she was, she would never let us see anything negative – I never heard her complain, I never even saw her cry.”

The 33-year-old spoke at length of her mother’s demanding routine which started at 5am and ended often after midnight. As their father has mobility issues, Tahira had to not only take care of him and Imran but also be proactive about employment. “Whatever I am today, independent or brave, it’s because my mother pushed me; she would said, ‘Jitna seekh saktie ho seekho’.” Which translates to always keep on learning.

“Even when there was a financial crisis at home, it would never reach us children, we only knew we had to focus on studying – which I didn’t do initially and which would be the one thing my mum would tweak my ears over!”

All Tahira wanted were bright futures for Ahmad and Arifa (and her students) and comfort for Imran.

Arifa with her parents in Lahore in Jan 2014.

As the only daughter, Arifa pushed her boundaries and Tahira gladly pushed back, just enough to allow Arifa to find some direction. Eventually, Arifa moved to Islamabad to do her MBA and would drive back on her own to surprise Tahira. Arifa said that would be a big thrill for her mother.

“Since I was 19 or so, when I left for my master’s, she and I spoke every night, I just had to tell her about my day. She was my habit, she was my best friend.”

Now Arifa has a seven-month daughter, Sophia. “I wanted to wait but my mother kept pushing me, telling me once I had a child, I would see how I could never live without one.” Arifa added she saw how badly her mother wanted a grandchild and that convinced her to start a family.

“Now all that keeps running through my head is that my daughter will never get to know my mother…aik bohat bari khuwaish reh gai.” Her brother had also shared how his mother was so excited about watching Sophia grow up, “these are the things where I’ll miss her.”

As grief slowly creates permanent resting space in the Qazi family, Arifa says there are many memories which push to the fore. “I can never forget how she would hug me twice and kiss me on both cheeks when I would show up in Peshawar. There were so many small things and now nothing will ever be the same,” said Arifa.

“She was my best friend.”

From Mardan to Peshawar

According to Ahmad, Tahira was born in 1951 in Mardan into a family which made a comfortable living. With five daughters and two sons, her parents made education a priority. Three of the sisters ended up becoming doctors, two educationists, one brother got enlisted and one became a banker, said Ahmad.

“She was the middle child. They were all very close; and none of them ever took any major decisions without consulting each other.”

Tahira completed her early schooling in Mardan before moving to Landi Arbab Yarhaj in the provincial capital. She completed her master’s in English from the University of Peshawar.

She started teaching as early as the 70s at a convent in Mardan before she left the district. And her career followed in the footsteps of her husband’s postings and transfers. Ahmad said she taught in whichever city his father was posted at, whether it was at another APS or any other college.

“She married baba in the 80s; they were first cousins,” said Ahmad. While his father was not there during the interview, Arifa later shared they had a great relationship. Tahira and her husband were best friends, always laughing and joking, “Even when they fought, they would pull each other’s leg over the matter.” Now the house is so empty, said Arifa, who tries to visit Peshawar every month.

May was the month Tahira was all set to retire and she wasn’t the only one looking forward to it. Ahmad and Arifa both had plans for their mother who would soon have more free time. “We are not very affluent but now, with my income, she could’ve sit back and enjoyed the fruits of her hard work – my career has just started and I wanted her to be there.”

Arifa had also made post-retirement plans with Tahira, “We were supposed to spend time together; she was going to come to Lahore and we were going to have fun…Nothing will be the same anymore.”

The post Tahira Qazi: To mother, with love appeared first on The Express Tribune.

Go Set a Watchman – which went on sale five hours before I sat down to write this review – is expected by many to be a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. Before I unwittingly contextualise one text with the help of the other, let me advise you to do the opposite: do not read Watchman as a sequel. By all accounts, it is a discarded first draft of the winner of the US Presidential Medal for Freedom and the Pulitzer.

Having said that, it really is very difficult to read Watchman without constantly looking back to Mockingbird as a frame of reference. Harper Lee’s debut novel sold over 40 million copies and is integral to the western literary canon. It served up a microcosm of the effect felt in the separatist south when decisions made in US circuit courts were struck down by the Supreme Court during the Civil Rights Movement. It also had a tremendous impact on those for whom the book was a first foray to where reality and ideals meet, where centres of gravity shift and some summon an inner courage to stay and fight and others will fall into the pack and conform.

Most readers who grew up yearning to be in Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch’s place on the court balcony as Atticus deliberately yet gently led first the witnesses and then the jury through the trail of inconsistent evidence, right up to the scene of Tom Robinson’s innocence, will be shattered by Watchman. They will not see the characters evolve in the direction Harper Lee left them at in Mockingbird because those characters were written five years after she wrote Watchman. Instead, readers will see different verdicts to the rape case, varying details and plot changes which rob Mockingbird devotees of the imagined trajectory of characters.

Read: First chapter of new Harper Lee novel released

Watchman was written in the mid-1950s and is based on the slightly hyperbolic, irrepressible narrative of twenty-six-year-old Scout, who returns to Maycomb from New York armed with a resolve to maintain her independence. She soon realises the real battle was not with her heavily-corseted conservative Aunt Alexandra but with the civil rights movement as it pressed deeper on racial fracture lines. Expecting the comfort of knowing her hero, her father, is still the man she trusted and would still be the centre of her truth, Scout (and through her, the reader) is quick to realise that Atticus is actually a bigot. He becomes Atticus the segregationist who believes the African-Americans were too backward to be part of the government, to have equal right to vote.

It is hard to critique someone as acclaimed as Harper Lee, but how can the reader not cringe when, unlike the voice in Mockingbird, the Scout in Watchman can come across as slightly hysterical? Scout’s conversations with other characters zigzag through her internal monologues, challenging the reader to piece together her thoughts. Instead of letting themes come through in the knitting together of her characters and their choices, Lee tends to use her characters’ voice as a direct vehicle.

Somewhere in the second half of Watchman, the themes of coming of age and a motherless child’s idolisation of her father explode into a breathless narrative, possibly best described in Lee’s editor’s words as more “a series of anecdotes than a fully conceived novel”. Yet, there is something compelling, something which resonates when Scout happens upon the realisation of self. Her coming of age is marked by the moment her childhood heroes fall from grace and villains rise for redemption. This is powerful enough to make Watchman resonate if you have struggled with the painful dissonance between your identity and those who were thought to have moulded the very shape you so proudly took on. Scout describes this process as “making secret trips to long ago, making no journey to the present”.

Read: ’Finch’ fries, ‘Boo’ burgers as Harper Lee’s hometown greets new novel

As we grasp at straws to understand the shift in characters in this second novel, Lee’s biographer provides some insight into the journey of Atticus. Charles Shield’s Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee was published in 2006, a year before Lee suffered a stroke which left her wheelchair-bound and with some impairment of sight and hearing. Shield reveals that Lee’s father Amasa Coleman Lee was possibly the blueprint for Atticus. Coleman went from staunch segregationist in the 1950s to preaching equal rights for all. Like Atticus from Mockingbird, Coleman Lee fought for justice for African-Americans in court and lost. Reconfiguring Atticus from Watchman to Mockingbird potentially mirrors Lee’s father’s journey from segregationist to someone who wanted fairer voting rights.

Therein lies the havoc of reading non-sequential books as complementary components of a whole. Lee’s editor saw the potential in Watchman and in the two or so years that the author worked on the draft, characters were fleshed out to become the ones we grew up aspiring to be when Mockingbird was launched in the 1960s. After a book which was so magnificently received, it seems unlikely that its first draft was meant to be read by anyone, let alone millions.

Pre-launch, global news outlets scrambled to find the secret behind Watchman’s unexpected release. Harper Lee had retreated to Monroeville, Alabama after Mockingbird’s heady success. She still resides there and her lawyer, who is said to be behind the ‘discovery’ of the Watchman transcript, has been discredited as Lee gave conflicting accounts of how and when the work came to be. Her friends, according to The Wall Street Journal, question Lee’s ability to consent to publishing the book. Thus one question nags throughout and makes Go Set a Watchman a slightly uncomfortable, voyeuristic read – is this the book Lee never wanted as her legacy?

The post Book review: An unsettling legacy – Go Set a Watchman appeared first on The Express Tribune.

Go Set a Watchman — which went on sale five hours before I sat down to write this review — is expected by many to be a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. Before I unwittingly contextualise one text with the help of the other, let me advise you to do the opposite: do not read Watchman as a sequel. By all accounts, it is a discarded first draft of the winner of the US Presidential Medal for Freedom and the Pulitzer.

Having said that, it really is difficult to read Watchman without constantly looking back to Mockingbird as a frame of reference. Harper Lee’s debut novel sold over 40 million copies and is integral to the western literary canon. It served up a microcosm of the effect felt in the separatist south when decisions made in US circuit courts were struck down by the Supreme Court during the Civil Rights Movement. It also had a tremendous impact on those for whom the book was a first foray to where reality and ideals meet, where centres of gravity shift and some summon an inner courage to stay and fight and others will fall into the pack and conform.

Most readers who grew up yearning to be in Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch’s place on the court balcony as Atticus deliberately yet gently led first the witnesses and then the jury through the trail of inconsistent evidence, right up to the scene of Tom Robinson’s innocence, will be shattered by Watchman. They will not see the characters evolve in the direction Harper Lee left them at in Mockingbird because those characters were written five years after she wrote Watchman. Instead, readers will see different verdicts to the rape case, varying details and plot changes which rob Mockingbird devotees of the imagined trajectory of characters.

Watchman was written in the mid-1950s and is based on the slightly hyperbolic, irrepressible narrative of 26-year-old Scout, who returns to Maycomb from New York armed with a resolve to maintain her independence. She soon realises the real battle was not with her heavily-corseted conservative Aunt Alexandra but with the civil rights movement as it pressed deeper on racial fracture lines. Expecting the comfort of knowing her hero, her father, is still the man she trusted and would still be the centre of her truth, Scout (and through her, the reader) is quick to realise that Atticus is actually a bigot. He becomes Atticus the segregationist who believes the African-Americans were too backward to be part of the government, to have equal right to vote.

It is hard to critique someone as acclaimed as Lee, but how can the reader not cringe when, unlike the voice in Mockingbird, the Scout in Watchman can come across as slightly hysterical? Scout’s conversations with other characters zigzag through her internal monologues, challenging the reader to piece together her thoughts. Instead of letting themes come through in the knitting together of her characters and their choices, Lee tends to use her characters’ voice as a direct vehicle.

Somewhere in the second half of Watchman, the themes of coming of age and a motherless child’s idolisation of her father explode into a breathless narrative, possibly best described in Lee’s editor’s words as more “a series of anecdotes than a fully conceived novel”. Yet, there is something compelling, something which resonates when Scout happens upon the realisation of self. Her coming of age is marked by the moment her childhood heroes fall from grace and villains rise for redemption. This is powerful enough to make Watchman resonate if you have struggled with the painful dissonance between your identity and those who were thought to have moulded the very shape you so proudly took on. Scout describes this process as “making secret trips to long ago, making no journey to the present”.

As we grasp at straws to understand the shift in characters in this second novel, Lee’s biographer provides some insight into the journey of Atticus. Charles Shield’s Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee was published in 2006, a year before Lee suffered a stroke which left her wheelchair-bound and with some impairment of sight and hearing. Shield reveals that Lee’s father Amasa Coleman Lee was possibly the blueprint for Atticus. Coleman went from staunch segregationist in the 1950s to preaching equal rights for all. Like Atticus from Mockingbird, Coleman Lee fought for justice for African-Americans in court and lost. Reconfiguring Atticus from Watchman to Mockingbird potentially mirrors Lee’s father’s journey from segregationist to someone who wanted fairer voting rights.

Therein lies the havoc of reading non-sequential books as complementary components of a whole. Lee’s editor saw the potential in Watchman and in the two or so years that the author worked on the draft, characters were fleshed out to become the ones we grew up aspiring to be when Mockingbird was launched in the 1960s. After a book which was so magnificently received, it seems unlikely that its first draft was meant to be read by anyone, let alone millions.

Pre-launch, global news outlets scrambled to find the secret behind Watchman’s unexpected release. Lee had retreated to Monroeville, Alabama after Mockingbird’s heady success. She still resides there and her lawyer Tonja B Carter, who is said to be behind the ‘discovery’ of the Watchman transcript, has been discredited as Lee gave several conflicting accounts of how and when the work came to be. Lee’s friends, according to The Wall Street Journal, question her ability to consent to publishing the book. Thus one question nags throughout and makes Go Set a Watchman a slightly uncomfortable, voyeuristic read — is this the book Lee never wanted as her legacy?

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, July 26^th, 2015.

The post Book review: Go Set a Watchman – An unsettling legacy appeared first on The Express Tribune.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government transferred and posted six officials to various departments on Tuesday with immediate effect.

According to notifications issued by the K-P Establishment department, information officer Mubashir Rahim Malik has been posted as press secretary to the chief minister. Ghulam Hussain who was working as the press secretary has been asked to report to the Directorate of Information and Public Relations.

Imran Khan, a section officer (SO) at the law department, has been transferred to health department, while Daulat Khan, an SO at the agriculture department has been transferred and posted as SO to the health department. Akbar Khan, a health SO has been transferred to the law department as an SO while Dilawar Khan, another health SO, has been transferred to the agriculture department.

The post CM’s press secretary transferred appeared first on The Express Tribune.

Two policemen were shot dead Thursday evening in Skwar, in the suburbs of Gilgit city.

According to the police, Hussain Iqbal and Manzoom Hussain were killed around 6pm when armed men attacked them and fled. The policemen were not in the uniform when they were shot and killed, said an officer.

Preliminary investigations reveal the two officers might have been killed over personal enmity. “This appears to be in retaliation of the murder of a soldier recently. There are eyewitness accounts,” he added.

Iqbal was in the elite police force while Manzoom Hussain was in the special branch and currently posted at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat.

Police registered a case and started investigation.

The post Two policemen shot dead in Gilgit appeared first on The Express Tribune.

IGP Nasir Khan Durrani has ordered the promotion of 26 inspectors, including five women officers, as DSPs.

The recommendations were made during a department selection committee meeting, after which they were forwarded to the IGP. An official notification has been issued in this regard.

The names of the women promoted to DSP are Anila Naz, Asmat Ara, Shazia Shahid, Hamida Bano and Rozia Latif.

The post 25 inspectors promoted as DSPs appeared first on The Express Tribune.

One might disagree with Azam Hoti’s political life and thoughts, but no one can ignore his capabilities and talent. With limited resources and support, it was Azam’s struggle that brought the Hoti clan to the fore of Mardan’s, and eventually Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s political scene.

Very few people are aware once he completed his education, Azam joined the army and was commissioned in 1967. He became a captain in the Pakistan Army Armoured Corps. Azam even participated in the 1971 Indo-Pak war and quit the service only after clashes between Pukhtun activists and the armed forces at Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi on March 23, 1973. A large number of young Pukhtuns are said to have lost their lives at Liaquat Bagh.

Like many others, Azam, unhappy with the injustices, left the country for Afghanistan and returned in 1979 only after military dictator Ziaul Haq announced general amnesty for Pukhtun leaders.

The late leader’s father, Amir Muhammad Khan, was a close aide of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Like Bacha Khan, Amir Muhammad Khan spent most of his life in and out of prison and involved in political action; first against the former British colonial rulers and then against the civil and military establishment which dominated Pakistan. This came at the cost of Azam’s father losing almost all his property, causing his family to also suffer.

The rise

But by then, Azam had not only become an army captain, he had made a successful debut in politics after he returned from his self-exile in Afghanistan. And no one was expecting Azam’s role in politics would give the family such a tremendous boost.

He was first elected to the National Assembly in 1990 and become a minister of state in the first government led by Nawaz Sharif. This was after he contested the 1988 general elections unsuccessfully. He remained a senator from 1993 till 1996 and had retained his NA seat in the 1997 polls. Azam served Nawaz’s second government as the minister for communication.

While many would rush to insist the famous motorway was the brainchild of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz or the Sharif brothers, Azam was the one who floated the idea first as the minister of state for communication in 1992.

The power pivot

Without Azam Hoti and his family, the remaining two brand names associated with Awami National Party would find it difficult to land a win or make a true comeback into parliamentary politics. The only other exceptions of multiple successes are the late Khan Mir Afzal Khan and late Nawabzada Ghafoor Khan who held more than one political office.

Azam and his son Amir Haider have held several powerful positions. And after the death of Khan Abdul Wali Khan in early 2007, Azam was one of the pivots which swung popular success towards the way of the ANP, eventually making it a ruling party in the 2008 general polls.

The last few years of his life were marred by family disputes; rifts with his children and even with Begum Naseem Wali, his sister and the late Wali Khan’s wife. His demise will most surely weaken his family’s influence which faces strong rivals in Mardan and even the party. After the impact of religious extremism on the ability of ANP to even campaign in 2013, the death of someone as powerful as Azam Hoti trumpets an end of an era of astute political acumen within the Hoti clan and the party.

The post The inimitable Azam Khan Hoti appeared first on The Express Tribune.

Tribal elder Malik Muhammad Jan from Mamond tehsil was killed in an IED attack in Bar Kamar Sar in Khar on Monday. Five others also died in the attack.

A political administration official in Khar confirmed to The Express Tribune that the remote-controlled attack on the tribal elder’s vehicle.

Malik Jan, JUI-F former tehsil ameer Fazale Rabi, Musafar Khan, Shahabuddin, Abdullah and Usman were coming from Zagai village of Mamond when an IED devise planted on a roadside went off around 8am. All six men died on the spot. Their bodies were taken to a hospital in Khar and were later handed over to their families.

The political administration and security forces cordoned off the area and a search operation was ongoing till this report was filed. So far no one has claimed responsibility.

The area where the attack took place was once considered a militant stronghold but was later declared clear after military operations. A peace committee volunteer, Muhammad Rehman, died in a thunderstorm on Monday.

Series of attacks

On Sunday night, unidentified persons attack the house of a tribal elder, Rehmat Wali, in Sharab Kor Qandaro area of Safi tehsil, Mohmand Agency. According to a political administration official, the firing left one of Wali’s sons Said Wali dead while the other one, Arshad, sustained injuries and was  taken to Peshawar for treatment.

Of late, government officials, security personnel and pro-government tribal elders are being targeted. On May 1, peace committee leader Khalid Khan was killed in Nawagai subdivision of Bajaur Agency.

Another tribal person was killed in a cross-border mortar attack on May 10 in Bajaur.

The post Tribal elder, five others killed in IED blast in Bajaur appeared first on The Express Tribune.

The Ehtesab Court remanded a government contractor to the custody of the commission for 14 days. Ehtesab Commission is investigating Muhammad Javed’s involvement in getting a contract for a bus stand illegally.

Javed was arrested for allegedly securing the contract of the General Bus Stand in Peshawar in connivance with relevant officials at a lower rate, stated a handout on Monday.

Additional Prosecutor General Qazi Babar Arshad produced the accused in the court of Judge Subhan Sher. The court was told Javed wrongfully obtained the contract resulting in the loss of millions to the provincial exchequer in 2012-13.

Arshad requested the court to grant custody of the accused for further interrogation. The court approved 14 days of physical custody.

The Ehtesab Commission also arrested Kohat Development Authority Housing Officer Attaullah Jan. He was accused of illegally transferring plots in KDA using forged signatures of ex-project directors.

The statement added Jan allegedly changed the status of 35 plots worth millions in violation of rules.

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A family from Khuzai tehsil in Mohmand Agency demanded action against the political administration which was allegedly assisting their foes.

At the Peshawar Press Club on Wednesday, Ali Haider said he had a land dispute with Nawab and the political administration along with influential locals had formed a committee to resolve the dispute. However, Haider accused Nawab of bribing the political administration which in turn he accused of forcefully attempting to take over his land.

Haider said levies personnel had physically harmed him and women from his family after the move to grab their land was resisted. “We finally reached out to Khyber Rifles to stop the political administration – that’s how the levies personnel stopped harassing us.” He said the political administration had been harassing him and even kept him in illegal custody for three days.

He said he had given full autonomy to the local committee to resolve the the dispute. However, Haider demanded the governor and other officials take action against the political administration.

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