The murder that shook 1970s’ Pakistan

Shahid Abidi, Mustafa’s friend, was one of the people trying to call him. A visitor had turned up to his house the previous night.

The man was Saleem Khan, and he had a problem. His wife was missing.

She was twenty-six years old, and her name was Shahnaz Gul. Saleem had picked up their children from school in the afternoon and brought them home, only to find that Shahnaz wasn’t there. If she had gone out for a social engagement, she would have returned in a few hours, perhaps by the evening, but it was now past 10 p.m. and there was no word from her. He didn’t want to cause speculation or gossip, so he didn’t call the police. In any case, he had some idea of his wife’s whereabouts, and that is how he had ended up at Shahid Abidi’s house. Saleem suspected she was with Mustafa, and he wanted his address.

A chance meeting between Shahnaz and Mustafa at the Sind Club over a year ago had led to a friendship, and it was now an open secret in Karachi that the two were having an affair. Saleem had seen Mustafa openly flirt with his wife, but he did not come out and say it.

There was no way Saleem could look for her without some personal embarrassment, to admit he couldn’t find his wife, but he was worried. He knew Mustafa was an emotional, volatile man, who kept pressurizing Shahnaz to be with him. Mustafa even rang their house often, and just a few days ago, he had threatened to kidnap Shahnaz if she wouldn’t marry him. He was clearly infatuated — calling her, stalking her — and refusing to accept that she didn’t want to see him.

Mustafa had told most of his friends about the affair, and how much he loved Shahnaz.

If Saleem was worried about Shahnaz’s safety, Mustafa’s friends had other concerns. In recent days, he had told them things about Shahnaz that were either wildly imaginative or deeply disturbing; disturbing enough that one of Mustafa’s acquaintances had asked him to get away from Shahnaz — and Karachi — immediately. Now, suspecting that Mustafa had been with her for several hours, and was refusing to answer the phone, Shahid feared Mustafa may have done something to harm himself – or Shahnaz.

Saleem had brought along a friend of his, a man named Qureshi who also knew Mustafa. The three of them talked it over. There weren’t many options. Calling the police would cause a scene. Around 2 a.m., Shahid called Faiyaz Malik, who owned the house where Mustafa lived. He told him that Saleem was looking for his wife, and they wanted to go see if she was with Mustafa at his house. Would Faiyaz join them?

Faiyaz’s mother didn’t want him to go out in the middle of the night, so he declined. Shahid called his brother-in-law, Jaffar Raza Rizvi. He told him to come over so they could drive to Mustafa’s house in the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) Scheme I area.

Shahid Abidi, his wife, and Jaffar set off, along with Saleem and his friend, who took another car. It must have been awkward and embarrassing. Mustafa’s friends were bankers and executives; young men from respectable, middle-class families, not the kind of people who would knock on someone’s door and look for another man’s wife.

Still, what choice did they have? At this point, there was enough cause for concern. The cars pulled up outside Mustafa’s house after around two in the morning.

The chowkidar, Iqbal, was sleeping outside on a charpoy.

Where was Mustafa, they asked? They had been trying to call him and he wouldn’t pick up the phone.

He is in his bedroom, Iqbal said. He must be asleep. They could hear the hum of the air conditioner from Mustafa’s room, loud and clear in the hot, still October night.

At Saleem’s insistence, Shahid knocked on the door, but no one answered.

Perhaps they could have beaten down the door, or shouted, or even lobbed a rock and broken a window. But Mustafa lived in an upmarket area, home to the city’s elite — socialites, retired generals, and prominent doctors. This wasn’t the kind of neighbourhood where you could just smash your way in and bring attention to yourself.

Mustafa’s friends assumed Iqbal was right, and that he was in bed.

But Iqbal had actually not seen Mustafa retire for the evening. He had the day off, which he had spent visiting relatives. He didn’t see Mustafa when he returned home. But he assumed Mustafa was ensconced in his bedroom, since he hadn’t seen him — or anyone else — leave the house. His car was still in the garage, Iqbal told the late night visitors, though Jaffar couldn’t see for himself since the door was closed.

Saleem and Qureshi drove away. Shahid and the others went back home, but they spent a restless night, and at 7:30 a.m., Shahid and Jaffar called Mustafa again. There was still no answer. They should have gone to work, but they were worried about why Mustafa wouldn’t answer the phone or the door.

Jaffar called up Shafiq Ahmed Khan, a district magistrate in Karachi and an old classmate of his, to ask for advice.

Shafiq heard him out, and told Jaffar that he had to involve the police, especially given the possibility that a woman was in the house.

While Shafiq made calls to the police, Shahid called up one of Mustafa’s relatives, told him what had happened the previous night, and asked him to come to Mustafa’s house.

The men gathered there, and Iqbal, the chowkidar, watched as Shahid placed a ladder against the wall, and climbed up to a window on the first floor of the house, where Mustafa’s bedroom was. The curtains were drawn but Shahid could make out that a man was lying on the bed.

Iqbal thought Mustafa was home, just like he had told the visitors the night before. The men spoke among themselves in English, a language Iqbal didn’t understand, and quickly left.

A while later, Mustafa’s friends converged on the house. Saleem Khan arrived. Then the officers from the local police station came, who had been summoned by Shafiq, the magistrate.

There was no sign of Mustafa stirring.

He hadn’t seemed to notice that his friend was on a ladder outside the house, looking into his bedroom, or that the street was now starting to fill up with people. The men knocked on the door again, hoping that Mustafa would answer.

There was no sound. Shafiq told the police to break open the door.

The officers pushed their way in and went up the stairs, as did Saleem.

The lights in the house were off. They reached the bedroom. The air conditioner was running, and Mustafa was lying in bed. There was blood on his mouth and nose that had soaked through to the bedsheet. The phone that everyone had been trying to call him on was off the receiver with the cord stretched across Mustafa’s body. It was apparent that he was dead.

A passage led to an adjoining room. There, the men found a woman lying on the floor, seemingly unconscious, but breathing.

Saleem called out to her. This was Shahnaz Gul, his missing wife. He had finally found her, in this house with a dead man. Later, everyone would have different memories of what Shahnaz did when she was found; if she was still unconscious, or somewhat responsive, that she had opened her eyes, moaned, and closed them again. Recollections would vary about Saleem’s reaction on seeing his wife, and it would be disputed that he apparently said, ‘Shahnaz, what has happened to you? What have you taken? What has Zaidi given to you?’

— Excerpted with permission from Roli Books