Pakistan’s battle fatal Floodwaters

When the Indus became the Yellow River of sorrow

By Frank Huzur in Islamabad, Pakistan

Ahead of preparing to visit Lahore for the seventh time in three years, my mind was occupied with frightening wave of terror attacks experienced during the previous tour in October-November 2009. Quite a good number of tempestuous terror attacks had continued to bedevilled the life on streets of Pakistan in the intervening months. However, I had not anticipated the sudden death to suicide bombing by the rising currents of the Indus and Chenab. That Indus river will become the ‘Yellow river of sorrow’ and wreak havoc and destruction unbearable than that of suicide bombings was inconceivable until floodwaters raged in terminal fury and wrath in the wee hours of 29 July 2010.

In the holy month of Ramadan fasting, millions of Pakistanis running helter skelter for food, water and shelter evokes the ghostly memories of the bloody month of Ramadan 63 years ago in 1947 when largest migration of Hindus and Muslims bloodied the waters of the Indus river.

In New Delhi, I didn’t have the faintest idea of the tempest I would be up, close and personal shortly after landing in Lahore. News trickling in Indian media about the devastating deluge destroying village after village in all the four Pakistan’s provinces didn’t probably have shocking punch of the enormity of the tragedy. The gargantuan scale of the water-borne human tragedy hit me hard soon when my eyes stared into relief camps, which had sprung up nearly at every traffic corner and market square. Whenever my host’s car came to a screeching halt at the red light intersection, young boys and girls began to knock at the windowpanes with a square paper box soliciting for the suffering millions.

I could sniff screaming silence in the air of Lahore. The city was crying in the month of Ramadan. In a swift departure from suicide blasts days, drivers of vehicles were not reluctant to welcome an advancing band of fund-raisers on streets of Lahore for the idea of a terrorist inching closer in the garb of a mendicant or a hawker was blown away in the surge of floodwaters.

In a fortnight of surging floodwaters, stories of displacement and death began to unravel in cruel mathematics of humanitarian disaster of monumental proportion. Civilisation has thrived on banks of the Indus for over 5,000 years. The deluge of August threatens to devour the sanctum sanctorum of the Indus valley civilisation, Mohan Jadero in Sindh. While 30 million people are languishing in agonising despair loss of home and hearth, daughters and brothers, their lamentation has few takers.

Their President was gambolling in the summery breeze of Paris and London, admiring the frescoes of his castle, fobbing off hurled shoes from expatriates and defending his jaunt by claiming his visit in hours of catastrophe brought more publicity and triggered healthy largesse from the international community. People on streets scoff at President’s appeal and call him ‘Nero of Rome.’

There are many tales of pillage and plight floating like the rickety boat on Indus and Chenab. It was chilling to learn of the dilemma of about 50,000 Hindus in Jacobad, Thund, Sultanpur and Khanpur areas of upper Sindh. A band of university boys from Karachi ventured on the rickety boat to discover the pinch hole. Larkana of Bhutto is however safe and sound, and people of Larkana are sheltering displaced Hindus population.

Majority of Hindus live in upper Sindh area and are affluent traders. However, imperiling their affluent existence is the reported increase in kidnapping of young Hindu girls in age group of 10-16 who are compelled to convert to Islam. Some elders of the community grumble their complaint is not registered at the local police station. Similar is the fate of young Christian girls in Punjab.

The mysterious disappearance of young girls and boys are actual cause for concern in the middle of humanitarian disaster. There are precedents of such atrocious missing and skeptics of minority as well as majority community are feeling the pins and needles of restlessness.

The Sikhs of North West Frontier Province are also living in disquietude and despair. The newly christened province of Khyber has won reprieve from booming sounds of suicide and car bombings but the angst of living through bomb blasts has given way to drag of saving their houses, livestock and their women and men. Not less than10,000 Sikhs are bearing the brunt of the catastrophe. Temples and Gurudwaras in Larkana and Peshawar are transformed into rehabilitation camp and community kitchen.

Christians in Punjab are in equal misery. The scale of tragedy has, for once, blurred the religious divide in Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Communities are reaching out to each other in distressing moments.
Nevertheless, millions of those who found themselves homeless and other millions who are still marooned are candid in confessing that they have lost faith in the democratic dispensation of President Zardari. The entire democratic machinery, the elected representatives across the party spectrum, have gone missing. Maulana Fazlur Rahman, popular as Maulana Diesel, who heads the right wing Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JuI) is performing Umrah in Jeddah. His detractors frown he is scared of making an appearance in his constituency.

The Taliban of Afghanistan is the creation of madrassas run by Rahman across all provinces in Pakistan. His capacity to raise battalion of fighters is his claim to political importance irrespective of ruling party in Islamabad. He is son of Maulana Mufti Mahmood, former chief minister of Khyber Pakthunwa who had defeated Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in the Dera Ismail Khan constituency in the 1970 general elections.

Dir and Swat are the worst-hit in the tribal areas. Swat continues to be cut off from the mainland Pakistan. Landmines and anti-aircraft missiles of terrorists are also flowing in floodwaters downstream from South Waziristan.

The system has crashed. Vivacity in the leadership has gone for a walk and the confidence in the leadership to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of unfortunate population is at its rock bottom. Parliamentarians and provincial legislators of both Pakistan People’s Party and Nawaz Sharif league are afraid of fetching the pump with dirty water. They fear lynching in public should they gather courage to console devastated flood victims.

Umar Khayyam, a Lahore-based advocate and political analyst, sums up the misery of his people. “As the tip of the iceberg continues to swell, the State’s capacity to meet the challenge continues to shrink. To reach out to the people, in a time of crisis, to express solidarity with them while pulling out all the stops in ameliorating their distressed lot is the hallmark of a functional, effective Government. On all these counts the incumbents have failed miserably. While strategic foresight, administrative finesse and political acumen have never been the strengths of the Zardari-led cabal of novices; but never have their failings been exposed as brutally before, as during this dire crisis. Pakistanis are being crunched in the pincer of monstrous calamity coupled with ineffectual and criminally negligent Governmental response. Only a historic and unprecedented aid programme can save millions of imperilled lives, or else Pakistan is all set to plunge into the deepest crisis of its national life.”

It’s anybody guess what the deepest crisis of Pakistan’s national life Umar is pointing at. With the vacuum in leadership right from the onset of the water tragedy, foot-soldiers of extremist organisations have rushed in where angels of Zardari and Sharif are reluctant to tread.

The unprecedented calamity hands Jamaat-ud-Dawa’s dipping stock a much-needed lifeline and an opportunity to redeem itself in the eyes of international community. Hafeez Sayeed receives a major boost, get his cadre swing into action much ahead of the state machinery. The alleged mastermind of Bombay terror attacks, sought by Indian government, floated a new charity organisation, Falah-e-Insaniat to storm the flooded areas.

In a telephonic chat with a popular Pakistani TV channel, when buck-beard Hafeez Sayeed was grilled over the source of funding for his organisation, he raised his voice to boast his funding sources are transparent and regularly audited by professional chartered accountants from Lahore who visit Muridke (headquarters of Jamaat-ud-Dawa on the western outskirts of Lahore) every month. The most wanted terrorist by the New Delhi government also boasted that Jamaat-ul-Dawa’s huge infrastructure and network has beaten all other charities and agencies in bringing relief to the suffering millions.

Hafeez Sayeed is working in tandem with Kidhmat-e-Khalq of Jamaat-e-Islami(JI) in the affected areas.

The New York Times headlined an August 6 article, Hard-Line Islam Fills Void in Flooded Pakistan. The newspaper pondered over the tangibles before sounding the bugle. Hafiz Sayeed is a free man in Pakistan, and he and his boys are saviours for hundreds of thousands of uprooted rural families, from backwaters of Sindh to Balochistan. Even the college students of Punjab University who have volunteered to run relief camps are swearing by the meticulously planned relief efforts of Hafeez’s organisation.

Musha Ghaznavi, 20 years old collegian of Lahore, told me, “Jamaat-ud-Dawa is running community kitchen, medical camp and tarpaulin shelters in over 100 centres across southern Punjab, Sind, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Villagers hail him as protector and benefactor in backwaters of southern Punjab but they also fear his wrath. Mothers lull their crying babies to sleep by chanting in their ears, ‘son, you close your eyes and sleep lest Hafeez Sayeed will appear.”

Leadership vacuum is palpable like the floating rags of poor swept by the bullish rage of Indus. Just as Indus waters began to breach barrage after barrage, it was American military aircraft which flew out of their Dubai airbase, and later Shahbaz airbase in Punjab, airlifting hundreds of thousands to safe banks. Pakistan military swiftly followed. Until now, it has outclassed the democratic government machinery in rescuing record number of marooned civilians. About 60,000 Pakistani military personnel are deployed in the floodwaters-battered areas, providing impetus to the relief and rescue operations.

The growing appreciation of Pakistan army’s role only reinforces the perception outside and within Pakistan that brass tacks still pull the string of power. Growing disenchantment with the democratic government gluts street rife with all shades of speculation over the durability of Zardari government. Observers and some media analyst told me on condition of anonymity that the next 90 days would trigger desperate attempt to dethrone the incumbents. A power storm is brewing in air of the Blue Area of Islamabad, the seat of power.

Will the Indus’s flood fury sink Zardari? This is the open question in Pakistan on streets. Yet, nobody has the million dollar answer as to who would bell the cat?

Still later, nobody is predicting the military coup or affirming hope in the audacity of General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to boot out Asif Ali Zardari. Instead, observers are hoping for a third alternative, the surprise emergence of a dark horse backed by GHQ, Rawalpindi, minus Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, to clean the pungent odour.

This is a dark omen, and international community has reasons to worry about amidst rising evidence of complete collapse of both provincial and federal machinery. Credibility quotient of President Zardari (Jemima Khan wondered in her column for The Sunday Times, 15 August 2010, how formerly Mr 10 per cent has upgraded himself since his Presidency to 110 per cent) having dipped to alarming level in recent months, the country is struggling to convince donors that $5 billion needed to build homes and hearths of 30 million victims will not fall in the hand of rogue, extremist and terrorist organisations who have pitched in ahead of the state. Turbulence swarms around.

The lukewarm response to the tragedy is further rattling well-reasoned Pakistanis. I was talking to my Liverpool-based activist friend, Shirley Rohan, who was skeptical of her donation reaching the poorest of poor victims in backwaters of Pakistan. She told me, “I fear my money will end up in hands of Taliban. Instead of bringing smiles to faces of innocent country folks, it might fund a suicide vest of a potential suicide bomber. Who should I trust to for my money?”

Unlike Shirley, Nic Careem is clear who he will trust to bring smiles to hapless millions in Pakistan. My London-based friend Nic has booked the West End’s Lyrical Theatre for special performance for his mass hit play, And Then They Came For Me, which features step sister of Anne Frank, Eva Schloss in the cast, in order to raise fund for the Pakistan’s flood victims. Nic told me, “I am inviting Jemima Khan and Imran Khan to the fund-raiser on 17th October, and will contribute the money raised to his newly set up Imran Khan Flood Relief Fund.”

Clearly, the misuse of funds during the previous natural disasters and contingency funds released during displacement of millions of people in tribal areas during Pakistan army’s offensive against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban in tribal areas has been a stuff of local nightmare and international disenchantment.

Ahmed Quraishi, a veteran journalist of Geo TV, blames the democratic dispensation of President Zardari for increasing failure to offer any contingency planning. He said, “Our rains and floods could never have turned into a tragedy worse than Haiti and Kashmir earthquake and the Indian ocean Tsunami combined if not for the manmade factors: an entire government and administrative structure that failed to offer any contingency planning before the tragedy or rapid response after. Village after village, Pakistanis saw how cardboard local administrations raised white flags and handed power over to the Pakistan military (army, navy, and air force) at the slightest hint of challenge.”

Ahmed talks about the video footage of Sindh chief minister who having been alerted by the Punjab government about floods, headed his way, stood before a camera to laugh along with his aides at how Punjab opened the waterways now that there is a flood, a thinly-disguised reference to the water disputes among provinces. The tragedy has virtually pitched people of Balcohistan against powerful landowning families of Sindh and Punjab.
Anarchy is reigning supreme in certain areas where displaced people have begun to blame some powerful families of deliberately breaching the embankment for flooding their farmlands in order to save theirs. Not less than former Prime Minister Mir Jafarullah Jamali took umbrage against some feudal lords of Sindh for flooding a vast chunk of Balochistan. Already Balochs are disenchanted with Islamabad, the fresh wave of realisation fills them with acute sense of alienation.

To top that, food riots are rampant in several areas. Convoy of trucks carrying food materials and clothes were attacked by burqa-clad women in Dera Ismail Khan.

The presidency rubbishes the rumour and conspiracy theories of deliberate flooding of certain areas. Senator Farhatullah Babar told me PPP government doesn’t believe in such theories and is committed to organise speedy relief to victims and efficient use of foreign and local aids.

But even local traders and business magnates are fighting shy of trusting the Zardari government-controlled flood relief agencies. A foreign journalist shocked President Zardari by asking him tongue-in-cheek, “Mr President, your government is riled on streets for massive fraud and corruption. People don’t want to donate because of the malaise. Are you the problem?”

Image deficit and distrust virus is spreading the blanket of gloom in Islamabad. When President Zardari convened a meeting of top industrialists and business magnates in Islamabad, majority of those invited feigned unavailability citing one reason or the other. The talk of introducing Flood Tax further soiled the environment.

Whereas President Zardari is assuming offensive posture in combating all-round attack on his credibility and efficiency, his Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is brutally frank in admission of the ‘Image deficit.’ He was candid in his confession aboard his military aircraft while taking aerial view of the flood-hit areas when he told a television anchor, “My government credibility is lower than that of your channel. You can raise more funds.”

Little wonder, the Prime Minister Relief Fund (PMRF) set up with much pomp and fanfare at the cost of over Rs 10 million worth advertising blitz in national media attracted not more than four million in the kitty. Compare this sum with that of a residential fund-raising centre of Model Town, set up by a local wing of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), they have raised similar amount of money without spending a single rupee on advertising. This speaks volume for the public distrust in Zardari-led Pakistan People’s Party. Similar is the fate of Nawaz Sharif-led party. Nawaz is as much reviled along with his Punjab chief minister brother Shahbaz Sharif for failing to uplift the sordid plight of millions of victims in Punjab.

Shohaib Sherwani, a bubbly young worker of the PTI in Model Town, Lahore, showed me around the relief camps of different political parties. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had set up the camp just alongside PTI. I saw people carrying relief materials, from clothes to food grains and cache of water bottles, giving precedence to Imran Khan’s party camp than that of Nawaz Sharif’s party.

“Three million displaced people are like Atom bombs for Pakistani society. They would find it tough to return to their village, the farmland is wasteland for next couple of years, seed of their harvest washed away. Politicians are occupied with target killings of their opponents in Karachi and Sialkot. These hapless, homeless people are leaderless, and have no faith in the ruling coalition. The leadership vacuum is being filled by religious fanatics and other fringe groups because their foot-soldiers are risking the surging floodwaters, sailing in rickety boats to provide food and tent to the victims,” said Oriyan Maqbool Jaan, a leading intellectual from Lahore who heads heritage conservation centre.

Pakistan needs not less than Rs 150 billion from the world community to plug in rescue, rehabilitation and reconstruction works. It is a challenge considering the whipping publicity about the ‘Image and trust deficit’ Islamabad is drawing not only outside its frontiers but also within.

It is reliably learnt that the government growth forecast of 4.5 per cent will be missed by miles. Agriculture support 60 per cent of $167 billion economy. With nearly half of the country farmland under the ‘scorpion grip’ of Indus deluge, food security is all set to go into the tailspin. Inflation will only accelerate further eventually throwing fiscal discipline in complete disarray.

Questions doing rounds in concerned quarters on the Blue Area of Islamabad are whether International Monetary Fund (IMF) will allow Central Bank of Pakistan to print money to finance the deficit. The IMF had set conditions in exchange for an $11.3 billion bailout in last two years. Islamabad received $7.6 billion loan from the premier credit doling body in 2008 to avoid defaulting on its overseas debt and the credit agreement was increased to $11.3 billion in 2009.

Mashhood Elahi Khan, a Lahore and Atlanta-based political analyst, laments, “Distrust is the deterrence. Tales of corruption abound in the government corridor as one goes back to another monumental catastrophe in October 2005 when over 80,000 people perished in monster temblor of Kashmir. Pakistan’s foreign debt today stands at $53 billion and it coughs up $3 billion in repayment of its loan every year.”

The long-running and all-weather friend of Islamabad, the United States administration earlier pledged to donate $35 million dollar but it has become the largest donor with $250 million. Senator John Kerry announced $200 million in aid upon his arrival in Islamabad. Saudi Arabia is also chipping albeit cautiously with $44 million. Nevertheless, Pakistanis are fuming over the meagre amount released from their most emotional ally. The United Kingdom offered $16 million whereas China has already pledged $9 million. The monetary aid is like a cipher in comparison to $6 billion the world community stepped forward to deliver shortly after the Kashmir earthquake.
When New Delhi, the arch rival, offered $5 million in assistance, the offer was greeted with usual cynicism. A day later, the government sources suggested the Manmohan Singh government offer should be routed through the United Nations. Street harangues mocked the Indian offer as ‘usual suspect’s olive branch’ whereas some folks on streets of Lahore and Islamabad gesticulated that the ‘India Shining’ establishment should cough up more in hours of Pakistan’s Greek tragedy.

Opinions, however, were divided on the streets whether Pakistan should accept the offer. At end of the day, Pakistan accepted the New Delhi offer.

Farrukh Sohail Goindi, a leading intellectual and an editor, told me, “This is embankment floods. They are sudden, destructive and programmed. Barrage after barrage have been breached. Some public intellectuals are arguing over the Kalabagh dam, the completion of which could have prevented catastrophe of this order. But there is no consensus between provinces over the dam. The country coffer has drained down by Rs 50 billion. Seven million acres of land is under water and we don’t harbour any hopes of re-planting for the coming crop season. More distressing is the ravage of one million acre of cotton growing area in Punjab and Sindh. I don’t see solution in the exit of Zardari government. Nature has put us in hellish dilemma to rise above petty politics.”

Muzaffargarh is one of the oldest districts of Punjab in Pakistan. Home to overwhelmingly Seraiki speaking population, this southern district town forms a strip between the river Chenab on its east and Indus on its West. Of the two million inhabitants of the district, only ten per cent of those living in the district town are surviving with their brick and mortar houses intact, the remaining ninety per cent population of the district has been displaced, with their houses washed away in the surging waters of Indus and Chenab.

Alongwith Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur and Dera Ghazi Khan districts are monstrously-hit and account for over 10 million people who are in throes of massive displacement and health emergency. Cholera and other water-borne diseases are now slowly choking their little ones to death.

In the village of Abbas Wala near Daira Deenpanah, Aleena, 16 years of age, was dreaming of a fairytale wedding. The water washed away her dreams and put tears into her dreamy eyes. Her eyes are swollen in flood of tears. Her grief-stricken countenance mirrors the tragedy of a benighted district.

The Indus floodwaters dealt her multiple blows. It blew away her mud house, killed her 57 years old father, Abur Rehman, and if these were not enough to punish the innocent, beautiful girl, her privation compelled her fiancee to call off the wedding scheduled a few week later. The floodwaters demolished the castle of her dreams.
Aleena’s family was preparing for her wedding to Aslam from the neighbouring hamlet. When Aslam learnt that his would-be-bride has been reduced to an orphan without home, he declined out rightly to enter into matrimony with the ill-fated Aleena. Aslam himself in throes of displacement claimed he needed dowry to rebuild his own house.
Amidst the total collapse of the government, the crisis has thrown up a score of middle-class entrepreneurs and young professionals who are battling odds in the surging stream of Indus waters. Confidence powers their resolve to reach the survivors against all oddities. Most of them are aligning either with Imran Khan-led Paksitan Tehreek-e-Insaf or going solo.

Nadeem Muhammad has left his cloistered business in Dubai to return to his native city of Sialkot. He is running quite a few community kitchens under the umbrella of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in worst hit areas of Muzaffargarh. He told me, “The government is full of fraudsters, fake degree holders and proclaimed cheats. Not a single representative of either provincial or federal government is anywhere to be seen. Just alongside my kitchen, workers of two ruling parties, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement(MQM) set up a medical camp. When Shahbaz Sharif, Punjab chief minister arrived with a retinue of media persons from Lahore in a chopper, all he could do was take a lazy view of the submerged area, pose for a photo and leave hastily. Farooq Sattar, MQM leader and federal minister also appeared to be in a tearing hurry to board a flight to Nine Zero, Karachi. Shortly after the leader left, the medical camp turned silent, with a handful of doctors making no attempt to attend any victims.”

Only to counter the bad publicity over ‘Image and trust deficit’, Pakistan’s largest media conglomerate, Jang Group of Publications which also owns the Geo TV roped in Imran Khan to launch flood relief fund. Imran is undoubtedly the man with sterling philanthropic credentials who has raised over $1 billion for the Cancer hospital he set up in memoriam of his mother, Shaukat Khanum.

Islamabad is famous for more trees on its boulevards than houses. Haroon Rashid, celebrated Urdu journalist told me there are 1.1 million trees in the city whereas there are only 1 million households. Rains are lashing the clean streets of Pakistan Capital where power elites are looking clueless over the titanic tragedy.
I was jostling among the milling crowds of admirers and battery of press persons at Islamabad Press Club on 19 August. There was optimism in the air and the harbinger of optimism was Imran who had returned from a successful fund-raising tour of America.

Imran appeared at the press club in Islamabad in starch white Shalwar Kameez to announce that he was going alone to raise funds through his Imran Khan Flood Relief Fund in collaboration with Mir Khalilur Rahman Foundation (MKR)-Pukaar of Jang Group, because the Pakistan government has failed yet again. He told me, “There is no disaster that can’t become a blessing, and no blessing that can’t become a disaster. I have no faith in the much touted talk of Flood Relief Commission which Nawaz Sharif is trying to push. This national disaster needs a national mobilisation. We should not expect ‘dollar rain’ every time calamity strikes us. There are 30 million Khandan (household) in Pakistan and I am confident these 30 million household can look after 30 million people displaced in the flood fury. I accept total responsibility for the total accountability of every single rupee donated to my account no: 06027900799703, Habib Bank Limited (Toll free number: 0800-00048).”

When I asked Imran whether he would fall back on his celebrity friends in Indian tinsel town of Mumbai for raising funds, he broke into faint smiles. “I haven’t thought of bothering my friends outside as of now. People of Pakistan shall join hands together and god willing, overcome the crisis.” However, Imran agreed to back any initiative of organising India-Pakistan charity cricket match if some proposals is floated by the respective cricket boards.
Imran Aslam, chairman of Mir Khalilur Rahman Foundation said, “Only to counter the bad publicity over ‘Image and trust deficit’ we are collaborating with Imran Khan. We are taking pledge to build every single homes.”
Imran Khan Flood Relief Fund is the brainchild of stocky-looking Nadeem Iqbal, the group director of Geo TV. The bespectacled creative genius Iqbal conceived the MKR Foundation during turbulence of Tsunami and marvelled in rehabilitation of over a million IDPs (Internally Displaced Peoples) during Pakistan military offensive (Rah-e-Nizat) against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban in Waziristan and Kashmir earthquake.

As Umar Khayyam in Lahore noted, these, indeed, are calamitous times for Pakistan; the most humongous deluge in recorded national history has unleashed its ferocity across vast swathes of its land, engulfing huge masses of humanity; swallowing up thousands, displacing millions while devastating over 15 million livelihoods. Natural monstrosities have come visiting this land before too, but this is the mother of all disasters. It has wiped out school after school, electrical transformer, roads and bridges and house after homes. The sheer magnitude of the destruction, the mere scale of wreckage strewn across Pakistan leaves one benumbed. Such is the volume of devastation that despite several days of its unleashing, the monster is refusing to abate to preclude any pertinent damage ascertainment.

Imran’s thought at end of the meet left me with something to ponder about the siege of Pakistan today. “Both optimist and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.” Indeed, Imran is a complex being in his battered country and he does have the reputation of making desert bloom and lakes dies. Once again, Pakistanis are looking up to his philanthropic brilliance to build their homes, children’s school and fire their hearths.

(Frank Huzur is a biographer of Pakistan legendary cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan. His upcoming book, Imran Versus Imran: The Untold Story is expected soon. He can be reached at frankhuzur@falcon-falcon.co.uk. Website link: www.falcon-falcon.co.uk)