Where law enforcers fear to tread: A stranger in a strange land

Going to Pakhtunabad, you must have the name of the person you wish to visit and the purpose of the meeting.

KARACHI: So what is it really like to venture into one of the city’s troubled spots? If you’re heading off to Pakhtunabad, you must have the name of the person you wish to visit and the purpose of the meeting. If you enter the area with neither, you might never leave.

When you step into area, you get the eerie feeling of being watched, of a sinister presence lurking about. But unlike so-called haunted houses, the demons in this area are very real and can terrify you even when the sun is shining brightly. At the first step, there seems to be only a pair of eyes watching you. At the second one, you can be sure that there are at least three more. The number increases almost exponentially as you move along. Then suddenly, like cells in an immune system flushing out foreign agents, they close in. The flurry of questions comes next:

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Who exactly have you come to see?”

“What’s the house number?”

Supplying sufficient information will earn you a couple of burly escorts to the address you stated. The wrong answers lead to a body bag.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 23^rd, 2013.