Forty billion rupees looted during Imran Khan's rule in KP

We have always known that Imran Khan is not the Mr. Clean his supporters believe him to be. If proof were needed, his wife provided plenty of evidence. So it was no surprise that the biggest financial scam in the history of KP has occurred while Imran Khan's party PTI has been ruling the province for over twelve years.

In what is known as the Kohistan scandal, forty billion rupees were siphoned off into private bank accounts. One of the suspects is Azam Khan Swati, former federal minister in Imran's cabinet. It's easy to guess that this kind of theft could happen only with the connivance of one or more provincial ministers.

One of the looters is a clerk in the provincial works department. His front man is a dumper truck driver who was found to be in the possession of four billion rupees in cash and property. I suppose Pakistani mothers should now pray that their sons become clerks and dumper drivers instead of engineers or doctors. 

Even though part of the looted money has been recovered, it's doubtful if the real culprits (those in the government) will ever be caught. But at least the people of KP know how corrupt their rulers are and will be careful next time they vote.

Trump's mathematics

Just like us?

Published in The News on January 26, 2026   

Way back in the 1970s, Pakistan had a health minister who claimed in an international conference that he had got prices of medicines reduced by 1000 per cent by introducing generic drugs. He was asked how this was possible, as reducing the price of anything costing Rs 100 by a hundred percent would mean it would be available for free, and a reduction of a thousand percent would mean that the buyer would get Rs 900 as well as the free item. I do not remember what the minister said when this was pointed out to him (if at all it was), but it was forgotten in a few days.

I was reminded of this when I heard US President Trump promise a thousand per cent reduction in drug prices. I could understand a Pakistani minister saying it, as we know the state of education in our country, but how is it that even the US president does not know what a seventh grade student does? Should we then assume that the US is just another third world country?

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

https://www.thenews.pk/print/1395166-just-like-us

US Iran tension and property prices in Karachi

There are credible reports that Pakistanis in Dubai and other countries in the region are moving their wealth to Pakistan to buy property in their homeland. Prices of bungalows, apartments and plots have skyrocketed, particularly in Karachi's DHA. The main reason is that the US may attack Iran any moment, and the resulting war will cause destruction in Arab countries neighboring Iran (if it retaliates, as it has threatened).

It's been evident for a long time that the glamour of Dubai, Qatar and Kuwait is a sham. If there is even a minor disturbance there, like the public coming out on the streets to protest, the resulting panic will see a mass exodus of foreigners from these countries. The attacks on Iran six months ago by the US and Israel led to the shutdown of Dubai's airport. In fact, yesterday some major airlines cancelled their flights to Israel and the region, expecting an attack by the US on Iran. 

Let's hope sanity prevails and Trump can be persuaded to back down. 

Gul Plaza fire

DEATH TRAPS

Published in Dawn on January 23, 2026

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THE recent fire at Gul Plaza proves that most buildings in Karachi remain death traps, and that nothing would be done to ensure that such incidents do not happen in the future. Of course, there are people in the government whose duty it is to ensure that buildings are constructed with adequate safety precautions and have at least two emergency exits. There must be those who are required to visit such buildings periodically and ensure that fire prevention SOPs are being observed.

And we can be sure that, on paper at least, such officials have reported that all places they have inspected are safe, just as there are factory inspectors who never visit factories because they are paid to stay away and generate all-good reports.

That said, can everything be blamed on the government? What about the shop-keepers themselves? It has been many years since I last went to Gul Plaza, and I saw that many shopkeepers had kept their goods in the passages leading to the exits. This would have made it very difficult for their customers to quickly get out of the building in an emergency.

As for fire prevention measures, it is simply out of the question. Purchasing fire extinguishers and recharging them every six months is both time consuming and cumbersome. And, in any case, why waste one’s money on frivolous things like fire prevention measures? Right?

Of course, if relevant inspectors had regularly visited the building and imposed fines on errant shopkeepers, this tragedy could have been avoided. But, then, such officials have only one thing in mind: how to speedily recover the money they have paid to get transferred to Karachi, and how to become millionaires in a couple of years. Absolutely tragic.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

https://www.dawn.com/news/1968588/death-traps

2,400 fires in Karachi in 2025!

The recent fire in Karachi's Gul Plaza should not have surprised anyone. It is reported that the city had 2,400 fires in 2025. Most of these would never have happened in we had honest government officers. The incredible corruption of Sindh Government is well-known. I estimate that more than half of its revenue is siphoned off to foreign bank accounts belonging to the rural areas. 

The Gul Plaza fire would never have happened if the officials warming their chairs had visited the place even once to check if fire safety measures were being followed. The plaza was originally built for a thousand shops, but two hundred shops were added without permission. If the Sindh Building Control people had prevented the additional construction, perhaps those trapped in the plaza could have managed to escape.

If more proof of their corruption is required, just consider that initially about thirty people were reported missing. When the government announced that it would pay ten million rupees to the kin of the deceased, the number of missing persons jumped to 85! One can easily guess what happened. Some people in the rural areas (in collusion with their friends in the government) will claim the ten million, declaring that their relatives died in the blaze. It's another matter that they will never be able to prove that their relatives were in the city, but that won't matter. Half of the ten million will be pocketed by their friends and relatives in the government, and they will be richer by five million. Of course, those unfortunate ones whose near and dear ones were among the victims will get the compensation money after many months, if ever. In fact, even they will have to pay half of it to the corrupt officials.

Karachi's mayor and solar power

Published in Dawn on January 16, 2026

WRONG ESTIMATE: This is with reference to the report ‘Mayor inaugurates Rs900m solar-powered street light project on Sharea Faisal’ (Jan 5), which quoted the Karachi mayor (Murtaza Wahab) as saying that the project would “save Rs25m in electricity bills” every year. I do not know whether to laugh or cry. A simple calculation (900 divided by 25) shows that the payback period for this project is 36 years. Ask anyone who knows the subject, and you will be told that the payback period should be of five years. The city mayor either does not know what he is talking about or someone has minted a lot of money.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

https://www.dawn.com/news/1967290/wrong-estimate

Imran Khan fails to get support from the people of Karachi

Imran Khan's supporters, encouraged by the turmoil in Iran, thought they could persuade the Pakhtuns of Karachi to rise against the government. It was a miserable failure. Only a few people attended, the ground was practically empty, so his henchmen made speeches on the road. 

It's easy to understand why the Pakhtuns refused to fall for his latest gambit. Imran Khan's province (KP) is reeling due to the stoppage of smuggling from Afghanistan, and this is affecting Pakhtuns all over the country. They realized that by paralyzing Karachi, the whole country would be affected and they would be the ones to suffer the most. Besides that, inflation is under control, prices of commodities have decreased due to prevention of smuggling them to Afghanistan, so the people really support the present government. Also the failure of Imran's party to improve conditions in KP (the only province under its control) has made his party very unpopular. Let's hope Imran Khan realizes now that it's better for him to remain quiet and remain in jail for another three years at least.

Artificial intelligence: a future scenario

A future scenario

Published in DAWN, January 5th, 2026

ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is speedily becoming very popular as more and more people use it to save time. However, it is now impossible to say with certainty whether a particular video clip is fake or real. We know that there are many people who go berserk when they see videos of their womenfolk dancing or even photos in which they are seen seated next to men who are not their close relatives. What if someone posts a fake video or obscene photo of a woman (who has rejected his advances) on social media and sends it to her relatives?

Things have got so bad that it is now impossible to even talk to others without getting into an argument. If, for example, I mention a video of a cult leader saying something controversial, the immediate response is, “It’s probably AI-generated”. Neither side is in a position to establish authority of the claim in such cases.

Of course, there is a positive side to it also. In school, we were taught that politics and religious topics should be avoided when talking to friends or strangers. So the only safe thing left is sports, like, say, cricket. I know for sure that I would not be lynched if I say that a particular cricketer should not be selected for the next tour.

Certainly, a more serious problem is likely to surface in a few decades from now, when, fortunately I have no chance of being alive. When robots become increasingly like humans in appearance, how will someone know if the man or woman talking to them is real?

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

https://www.dawn.com/news/1965215/a-future-scenario

A week later on January 12, this was again printed in DAWN (https://www.dawn.com/news/1966445/ais-future).

Jungle rule: Trump's invasion of Venezuela

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For weeks, Donald Trump had been talking of invading Venezuela and arresting its president. Yesterday the unthinkable happened: US forces captured the Venezuelan president and his wife while they were asleep. This is pure jungle rule. Trump is behaving like the neighborhood bully. Last week he said that the US would bomb Iran if demonstrators in that country were killed by the government. Of course, if he does attack Iran again, the Iranians would become more united. But would he threaten the Saudis if they did the same thing?

What I don't understand is how the US could simply walk into Venezuela and arrest its sitting president. Obviously, there must have been agents on the ground who kept the US informed of the Venezuelan president's whereabouts. But why hasn't the same thing been done to Cuba, which is avowedly anti-US? Is it because the Cuban people support their leaders?

It seems that Trump wants to control all the oil left on earth. He doesn't realize how much fossil fuels are responsible for global climate change. 

Dealing with inflated utility bills

Living in a third-world country like Pakistan has its advantages, incredible as it sounds. For instance, you don't have to wait fifteen days before a doctor gives you an appointment. You can buy medicines without a doctor's prescription. You can get cheap smuggled auto parts and even car engines that have been stolen or taken from damaged vehicles. But the downside is that if you get an inflated electric or gas bill it's almost impossible to persuade the company that there is an error in the bill and it should be revised.

Of course this kind of thing was very common before the electric supply company and the telephone departments were privatized. I once got a bill from Karachi Electric (before privatization) for a phenomenal amount, which was revised only after I had paid a bribe equivalent to a quarter of the bill amount. As for telephone bills, almost every month I would be charged for calls made to Ireland or Australia, which I had to pay, otherwise the telephone would be disconnected. In some cases, I did manage to get refunds, as in the case of a "ghost phone" which was not in my use. But usually one had to suffer and wonder why one's father had to choose this country to live in when many had migrated to civilized countries like Uganda or Nigeria (in 1947).

So when I got an inflated gas bill the other day I lost no time in going to their office and got the bill rectified. This was due to the fact that the meter reading on the bill was much higher than in the photo of the meter on the day the reading was taken. It was only due to my education that I was able to do so. An illiterate Pakistani would have been shooed away and told to pay or do without gas for the rest of his life. 

The Taliban will never stop destabilizing Pakistan

Not a day passes by without a terrorist attack in the north of the country. It was Imran Khan who encouraged the Taliban by saying that they had broken the shackles of slavery when the US withdrew its forces from Afghanistan. Later he emboldened them further by allowing forty thousand Afghans to settle in KP. That's the main reason for our failure to rein in the terrorists.

Another reason is that the Afghan Pakhtuns believe that KP and Baluchistan belong to them. They have been aided by India since 1947 to destabilize Pakistan. The problem is, many Pakhtuns in Pakistan also want their province (KP) to be either independent or part of Afghanistan. The Taliban will never give up their claim on the two provinces, especially since they want to impose strict Islamic rule over the whole of Pakistan once they get the two provinces.

The rebels in Baluchistan want their province to be an independent country. Here too India has played a major role. Baluchistan is the most undeveloped province in the country despite its rich mineral wealth. The common people in Baluchistan did not get to share in the revenue the chieftains received for the natural gas they sold to the rest of the country. 

It's indeed a matter of shame that our governments have not been able to pacify the people of the two provinces.

The mysterious Mr. Jinnah

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Mr. Jinnah, the man widely credited with single-handedly creating a new country, has always remained a paradoxical figure. The original Jinnah was so different from the masses he led that it's unbelievable they loved him.

For instance, he couldn't speak Urdu. He was more fluent in English than in his native tongue (Gujrati). Yet he proclaimed that Urdu would be the national language of the new country. And he said it during a speech in English in Dhaka, the capital of East Pakistan, the population of which was greater than that of West Pakistan. In fact, even in today’s Pakistan, Urdu is spoken by less than ten percent of the people, but because it is understood by the majority of the urban population, it continues to remain the national language.

Jinnah also didn’t know much about what Islam means to most Muslims. He didn’t know the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam, as he joined the minority Shia sect when he married a Catholic/Parsi woman and had to leave the Ismaili sect (in which he was born). He also didn’t know that those belonging to the Ahmadi (Qadiani) religion are not Muslims, he said they are Muslims when asked why he had an Ahmadi advisor (Zafrullah Khan). Not only that, he even asked the Sikhs to join Pakistan, offering them to impose any conditions they wanted to become part of the new Muslim nation. If they had done so, more than a third of Pakistan’s population would have been non-Muslims. This disproves the widely propagated claim that Pakistan was created in the name of Islam. In fact, the first Pakistan Resolution explicitly stated that Pakistan would be a country where the minorities of India would be able to safely practice their religions.

Finally, there was his speech in which he said that all citizens of Pakistan are equal, that there is no difference between Hindus and Muslims, Christians and Sikhs, that they are free to practice their religion in Pakistan. Evidently, he didn’t know that most Muslims in the subcontinent hated non-Muslims, particularly Hindus.

Despite all his foibles, I believe that by creating Pakistan, he saved the Muslims of the subcontinent from extinction.

 

 

Rape case decision proves our judges are still living in the Stone Age

It's been evident for a long time that the state of education in the country has been worsening and the latest case involving the apex court's decision in a rape case proves that the mindsets of our judges is like that of those who were living in the Stone Age. Recently the same court ruled that taking DNA of a woman violated her dignity, while in another case, even though an accused woman had agreed to her DNA being taken, the court didn't allow it.

In the latest rape case, the poor victim was not believed as she didn't provide torn clothes or other evidence to prove that she'd been raped. Her contention that the rapist forced her at gunpoint was not believed, and the judges held that it was not a case of rape but consensual sex. The poor woman will have to live the rest of her life as a shameless woman because she failed to pass the two-finger test (which has long been discarded as proof of women's promiscuity).

Perhaps the judges thought that it wasn't rape because she got pregnant. An American senator once said that a woman cannot get pregnant if she's been raped, and can get pregnant only if she's agreed to have sex. Perhaps our "honorable" judges also believe this, as the rape victim did get pregnant. Whatever the case, our judges should be selected only after being vetted thoroughly.

What it means to be married for 52 years

It's been fifty two years since I signed on the dotted line. Those were traumatic times, just two years after the country was sundered and half of it was lost. At times it seemed that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was doing his best to divide the country again, there was intense bitterness between the Urdu speakers and the original inhabitants of Sindh, and quite a few days were spent at home due to curfews. 

My friend, the late Abid Shaikh, never married and five years before his death he told me that he should have done so when he was 35. I have two relatives who have no children, and they've regretted it. 

When I married, some of my distant relatives felt the marriage wouldn't last for more than three years. In fact, during the early years I also doubted if it would last, as I was struggling most of the time to earn enough to feed my family. Fortunately I had taken up meditation in 1979 and it helped me a lot.

Looking back, I think I've been lucky in having had a successful marriage. 

Trump's million dollar gold and green card

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I'd never have guessed that the US economy is in such a bad state that it needs foreigners to get US citizenship for a million dollars (which is equivalent to 300 million Pakistani rupees. I know a few people among my near and distant relatives who have that kind of money, but I can't understand why anyone like that would like to live permanently in the US, now that we know how unstable that country is. But then, there are gangsters in Russia and Africa who would definitely love to settle there. In fact, as Trump said, there are about 40,000 who have applied for the gold card, some of whom may be Pakistanis.

Come to think of it, I've never wanted to live anywhere other than in Pakistan, even though I could have gone to the US in the 1960s, even though most of my life has been spent in struggling to survive. If I'd gone to the US and spent 50 years working in jobs I didn't like, I'd have gone crazy. So I suppose it's been a good decision to remain in the country I grew up in.

It's almost imposssible to enforce the minimum marriage age law

The Peoples Party deserves praise for trying to protect women in the country. It has passed the minimum marriage age bill for girls, requiring them to be married only after the age of eighteen. The only problem is that it's virtually impossible to ensure that this law is observed. One reason for this is that people in the rural areas of the country do not register the births of their children. But the main reason is that people believe that Islam requires that girls should be married as soon as they reach puberty (which most do at the age of twelve).

I once heard a judge say that he has no choice but to allow marriage of underage girls as that is the law of Sharia, even if the country's law prohibits the marriage of girls who are not yet eighteen. Naturally, if an educated man has this opinion, what can a layman say?

There is another reason: the sale of female children by men who don't earn enough to survive or buy narcotics. A maid servant once decided to go to the court for getting a divorce from her husband. the man came with ten others, demanding that his three female children should be handed over to him. He didn't want his wife back. It turned out that he'd already sold the girls and wanted to get the money from the buyers so he could continue buying drugs. In such a scenario, it's impossible to protect Pakistani girls. 

Finally, army confirms what I said long ago about Imran Khan

I think it was in 2017 (before Imran Khan was elected prime minister) that I tweeted about Imran Khan being a psycho and a security risk. It was retweeted immediately by an eminent journalist and read by more than 50,000. The journalist (Omar Qureishi) received a lot of flak from Imran Khan's followers.

In yesterday's press conference, the DG (ISPR) said the same thing repeatedly. The question arises, why were some army generals and judges not able to discern what even a layman like me could see plainly? Why did they openly support him in destabilizing the government of the day? I don't know if it'll happen in my lifetime, but a commission should be formed to find how a psycho was able to fool the establishment and formed a government that could have led to the country disintegrating again.

In the two years and three months that he's been in jail, Imran Khan has repeatedly proved that he's a mentally unstable person. Of course, there is more evidence to prove it, like his marriage to a woman who is said to believe firmly in black magic and such mumbo jumbo. But sad to say, many people I know still think he's a messiah who will lead Pakistan to greatness.

Why is Trump pardoning criminals?

President Trump is behaving like a modern-day Julius Caesar. Not only does he think he's above the law, he's apparently thinking that he can do anything illegal and get away with it. His bullying tactics to coerce the president of Venezuela to resign prove that he's mentally unbalanced. His order to attack all boats on the Venezuelan coast, his order to all airlines to stop going to that country is not something that the president of a democratic country should do. Yet he's doing it, and apparently no one can stop him.

His latest is a string of pardons to hardened and convicted criminals. The president of Honduras was serving a 45 year jail sentence, but Trump simply pardoned him. Then there was the Ponzi scheme guy who defrauded 17,000 Americans of 1.2 billion dollars. He has been pardoned after serving only 12 days in prison. The latest is a senator belonging to the Democratic party (Henry Ceullar) who was scheduled to be tried next month (together with his wife). Yet he too has been let off by Trump. Obviously, Trump is not doing such things because he loves them. There must be something in it for him too. We'll know soon enough. 

UAE has stopped issuing visas to nationals of poor countries

When I visited Taiwan in 1991, my hosts were amazed that I had gone to Singapore first. "What's there is Singapore?" one of them asked. "It's all artificial". I agreed, even though I went to Singapore later due to pressure of my family members. The same holds true for Dubai and the rest of UAE. Why do people want to go there? I would like to mention here that I've visited the UAE four times, not because I like it (I don't), but because I have close relatives living there. 

So, I'm not upset over the UAE government's refusal to issue visas to people of poor countries like Pakistan (although, in a sense, Pakistan is a richer country than even UAE, but more of that later). It  seems that Pakistanis under the age of 45 do not stand a chance of getting a UAE visa, unless they have rich relatives there who can sponsor them. 

Despite so many people not getting visas, flights from Karachi to Dubai are full, even though most of the people going there are not the kind I would like to be friendly with. Most of them are laborers working there, but some have invested heavily in real estate in Dubai. Those are the ones who've made their millions in Pakistan, but have no faith in the country's future.

Trump being cordial to Mamdani shocks Americans!

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Lo and behold, we saw another side of Trump when he met Mamdani. He even asked Mamdani to say yes when the New York mayor-elect was asked if he still considered that Trump is a fascist. This is definitely not the Trump we know, as we've seen how rudely he treated Zelensky. Let's hope that Trump changes and becomes a really nice and lovable person. 

But the question remains: will Mamdani be able to persuade billionaires like Trump to pay more taxes on their properties? It will indeed be a miracle if that happens.

I can't help comparing the situation of New York with that of Karachi. If only the taxes paid by Karachi residents were used for the city's development, it would not be the world's least livable. That can only happen only if the city is made a province. Unfortunately, that won't happen for a long time.