Buying time not future

The passing of Professor Amin Mughal in London on August 12, 2026, at the age of 91, has left me with an overwhelming sense of personal bereavement. I have lost a mentor, friend and former colleague; Pakistan has lost one of the last representatives of a generation for whom progressive politics was inseparable from humanism, scholarship, intellectual integrity and personal courage. Harris Khalique called his departure “یہ ماتمِ وقت کی گھڑی ہے”—an hour for mourning the times—and described him as “the last of the Mohicans who touched so many lives.” These words capture the magnitude of the loss. Professor Mughal belonged to a generation that imagined Pakistan as a democratic, pluralistic and egalitarian state—not as a security-dominated order governed by fear, dogma and privilege. Born in Punjab in 1935, he taught English at Islamia College, Civil Lines, Lahore. His teaching career there ended because of his trade union activities. For Professor Mughal, principles were never dispensable instruments of convenience. Losing employment did not silence him. Along with Professor Manzoor Ahmed, he helped establish Shah Hussain College, transforming an act of official victimisation into another avenue for education and intellectual resistance. As a leader of the National Awami Party, he was imprisoned more than once. His politics sprang from compassion for workers, peasants, minorities and all those denied dignity by structures of power. It was not the doctrinaire radicalism of slogans. It was a deeply humane commitment to freedom from exploitation, arbitrary authority and cultural suffocation. He was associated with Lail-o-Nahar and later with the weekly Viewpoint, edited by the legendary Mazhar Ali Khan. I had the privilege of working with Professor Mughal at Viewpoint from 1979 to 1984. Its modest office at 4-Lawrence Road, Lahore, became my real university. Mazhar Ali Khan, I.A. Rehman, Zafar Iqbal Mirza—affectionately known as ZIM—Alys Faiz and Amin Mughal represented journalism as a public trust rather than a commercial enterprise. Reflecting on those formative years in my tribute to ZIM, I wrote: “Amin Mughal and Alys Faiz were so proficient in writing that few could match their stature. They also taught me the art of journalism with great affection and dedication.” That remains one of the greatest blessings of my life. Professor Mughal taught by example. His scholarship was vast, his editing precise and his intellectual standards uncompromising. He corrected younger colleagues without belittling them and encouraged inquiry without demanding conformity. The Viewpoint collective stood firm during General Ziaul Haq’s brutal dictatorship, when truth invited censorship, dismissal, imprisonment or exile. Literature and journalism became important sites of resistance during those years. Professor Mughal understood that control over language, culture and historical memory was central to authoritarian rule. His engagement with Urdu and Punjabi literature was therefore never merely aesthetic; it was part of a larger struggle to recover suppressed voices and alternative visions of Pakistan. Forced into political exile in 1984, he settled in London and never returned to Pakistan. Exile, however, could not sever his intellectual or emotional relationship with his homeland. He worked for Daily Jang and, in the early 1990s, edited the Urdu daily Awaaz. Although the newspaper survived for only a little over a year, it represented another attempt to provide Britain’s Pakistani community with a serious and progressive public forum. Writing in The News on Sunday in 2008, Arif Azad recalled Professor Mughal as looking “his usual sharp and buoyant self, dressed in impeccable attire as is his wont.” He described him as belonging to “the vanishing breed of left-wing Pakistan intellectuals” in whom one could still discern the lofty and humane aspirations associated with Pakistan’s early journey. The description was exact. Professor Mughal’s impeccable dress reflected something deeper: an inner discipline, dignity and refusal to be diminished by adversity. Political persecution could deprive him of employment and homeland, but it could not deprive him of intellectual independence or personal grace. His Finchley home gradually became, in Arif Azad’s memorable formulation, “a port of call” for visiting writers, politicians and political and cultural activists from both sides of the border. For decades it served as an informal salon, archive and classroom. Generations of visitors encountered there a formidable memory, an incisive mind and a host of unfailing generosity. Even when he withdrew from active engagement in South Asian politics, he remained an enduring reference point for politically conscious Pakistanis in Britain. His interests ranged across philosophy, literature, history, political economy and contemporary affairs. He wrote perceptively on Bhagat Singh and, following Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, produced After Benazir Bhutto: Some reflections. Although he had opposed her politics, he recognised her courage and wrote that in the imagination of the masses she had acquired a mystical significance destined to inspire future struggles. That ability to rise above personal political preference and acknowledge truth distinguished him as a genuine intellectual. Professor Mughal’s life reminds us that exile is not merely physical displacement. It is also the condition imposed upon ideas that a state refuses to accommodate. Pakistan expelled or marginalised many of its finest minds and then wondered why intolerance, intellectual poverty and historical amnesia prevailed. Professor Mughal remained physically in London, but intellectually he never ceased to inhabit the Pakistan for which he had struggled. One by one, the great teachers of my Viewpoint years have departed. Their passing makes the country feel lonelier and its moral landscape immeasurably poorer. Professor Amin Mughal leaves no office, fortune or monument carrying his name. His true legacy survives in the minds he liberated, the writers he encouraged, the causes he defended and the generations he taught to question received wisdom. Farewell, dear mentor and friend. You lived in exile, but your ideas never left us. They will remain at home wherever people struggle for a democratic, pluralistic, just and humane Pakistan.

We Were Forewarned, Then Why Are We Drowning, and What Lies Ahead In March, when the glaciers were shedding their winter whites too early and the northern valleys stood bare against a sky that should have held snow, I wrote that the coming monsoon would test us. The National Disaster Management Authority had foreseen rains twenty-two to twenty-six percent heavier than the floods that killed more than a thousand souls the year before. Our embankments were still broken. Our protocols were still asleep. It is late July now. The test has begun. Riverine area dwellers stand at the edge of swollen rivers, watching the water turn from brown to something near black, carrying the upstream soil. There is that familiar murmur of disbelief from government corridors—the same soft gasp that follows every flood, as if the water had not been whispering its arrival for months. But the water does not whisper to those who will not bend their ear. It speaks in the language of saturated earth, and we have heard it before. We have simply chosen, again and again, not to listen. We were forewarned by the agencies. We were forewarned by the science. And we were forewarned by the very land beneath our feet—the old, patient land that absorbed until it could absorb no more, and is now quietly drowning. Yet when the skies opened, we were caught unprepared. And the heavy heart of Bhadoon is still to come. What the Old Farmers Knew For generations, the farmers of the Indus Basin have spoken of Sawan and Bhadoon not as months, but as temperaments. Sawan, the early monsoon of July and mid-August, is the gentle guest who fills the earthen pot. Bhadoon, the late monsoon of August and September, is the guest who arrives heavy with sorrow, and finds the door already swollen shut. There is an old understanding in the villages of Punjab and Sindh: if Sawan has been generous—if the rains have fallen day after day without rest—then Bhadoon must be received with care. Not because Bhadoon brings more rain, but because the earth, by the time Bhadoon arrives, has already absorbed all it can hold. The soil is no longer soil. It is a clay pot filled to the lip, trembling at the brim. The next drop does not nourish. It overflows. Modern science calls this Antecedent Moisture Condition. During a gentle Sawan, the land breathes; the rivers rise slowly, politely. But when the early rains come without pause, the land stops breathing. Its lungs fill with water. What was once a sponge becomes something heavy, something waiting. In dry years, only a fraction of rainfall becomes dangerous runoff. But once the soil is saturated, eighty to ninety-five percent of every new drop becomes immediate floodwater. The sponge has no choice. It must release what it cannot hold. It weeps. Nature does not betray us. It simply does what it has always done. It is we who forget the earth, who build our homes upon its floodplains and then feign surprise when the water remembers its ancient path home. The Water Remembers This is not a new story. The water has told it before, and it has told it gently, and we have not listened. In 1955, the Ravi rose with a roar that split the embankments of Lahore’s periphery. The river had been primed for weeks—day after day of July and August rain had filled the soil until the ground could no longer hold the September deluge. The peak at Madhopur was the highest ever recorded. The city woke to find its edges softened, dissolved, gone. In 1992, the same priming filled Mangla and Tarbela to their brims by mid-August. When the early September rains came, Tarbela’s flood-peak reduction capacity collapsed from thirty percent to two percent. The rest surged into the lower plains, uninvited and sorrowful. The engineers knew what was coming. The farmers had only the sound of the river changing pitch—a sound every old farmer knows, a sound that means it is time to gather the children and climb. In 2022, Sindh became an inland sea. Nearly a meter of rain fell on ground that was already thirty percent wetter than it should have been. The water had nowhere to go but into homes, into fields, into the places where people had built their lives on the quiet assumption that the land would always absorb their troubles. The years that followed did not forgive us. In 2023, the Chenab and Jhelum catchments drank until they were full, and when Bhadoon came heavy in September, communities that had barely recovered from 2022 found themselves underwater again. In 2024, the same quiet sorrow played across Sindh and Balochistan—early rains primed the soil, late rains broke the banks, and the katcha communities woke to find their world softened and dissolved. These were not catastrophes on the scale of 2022, but gentle, persistent reminders that the mechanism does not rest, and that a loaded sponge does not care whether the year is famous or forgotten. Then came 2025. The NDMA’s own reports confirmed what the old farmers could have recited without a single instrument: the rain fell on ground that was already wet. The system had no buffer, no forgiveness, no room for error. One thousand and thirty-seven people died. More than two hundred and seventy-five of them were children. Nearly seven million were affected. Three million displaced. Two hundred and twenty-nine thousand, seven hundred and sixty-three homes damaged or destroyed. These are not estimates. These are the quiet names and numbers of a nation that has grown accustomed to forgetting. Now, in 2026, the NDMA warns of an even more intense monsoon. The early snowmelt has already fed the rivers before the clouds even gathered. The reservoirs are high. The soil is full. The sponge is loaded. And Bhadoon has not yet arrived. The Quiet After the Warning The tragedy of this year is not that we did not know. It is that

By Ayesha Jamil Rao The recent protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) have reignited debate over the state of governance and education in India. Backed by students, artists, educators, public intellectuals, and activists including education reformer Sonam Wangchuk. The movement reflects not only dissatisfaction with education policy but also growing concern about the functioning of public institutions. For many protesters, the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan marked a symbolic victory. Yet it also raises a more fundamental question: has anything truly changed, or has one political actor simply been replaced by another operating within the same institutional framework? Replacing an individual rarely changes the character of an institution. At most, it creates a vacancy for someone else to occupy the same office. History repeatedly shows that leaders who enter politics with reformist ambitions can gradually become defenders of the very system they once challenged. Dharmendra Pradhan’s own political journey illustrates this paradox. As a student, he participated in protests against irregularities in the 1986 Odisha Board examinations. Decades later, he found himself at the centre of another wave of student discontent. His story is a reminder that institutions often shape leaders more profoundly than leaders reshape institutions. If that is true, then meaningful political change requires more than replacing ministers or governments; it requires reforming the institutions through which power is exercised. India is far from unique in facing this dilemma. Democracies across the world have witnessed protest movements that successfully remove leaders but struggle to transform the institutions that produced them. Bangladesh’s 2024 student-led movement offers one of the clearest recent examples. What began as opposition to the quota system for public-sector jobs gained momentum after inflammatory remarks by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina toward protesters. The movement eventually culminated in Hasina’s resignation and the formation of an interim government under Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus. It also compelled the authorities to reduce the controversial quota allocation from 56 percent to 7 percent. These were significant achievements. Yet history reminds us that changing a government is not the same as changing a political system. The departure of a leader does not automatically reform the institutions that enabled that leader to accumulate power. The Bangladeshi experience raises a broader question. Why do youth-led movements repeatedly succeed in bringing down governments but struggle to transform the institutions that generated the public grievances in the first place? The answer lies in the slow nature of democratic decline. Democracies seldom collapse overnight. More often, they weaken gradually as institutions become vulnerable to political capture, allowing successive governments to consolidate power regardless of who occupies office. This pattern can be seen in India’s debates over institutional accountability, Bangladesh’s uncertain transition, and Pakistan’s recurring cycles of political instability. Public discourse often centres on individual leaders, while far less attention is given to strengthening the constitutional, judicial, electoral, and administrative structures that determine how political power is exercised. As a result, governments change, but the deeper institutional weaknesses remain. None of this diminishes the importance of protest. Public demonstrations remain one of democracy’s most powerful instruments of accountability and, in many cases, the only effective means available to citizens confronting unresponsive governments. The challenge, however, is to ensure that protests do more than produce changes in political leadership. Their long-term success should be measured by whether they make it harder for any future government—regardless of ideology or electoral mandate—to manipulate state institutions for partisan advantage. The lessons extend beyond South Asia. The Arab Spring demonstrated both the promise and the limitations of revolutionary politics. Popular uprisings removed long-standing rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, but the outcomes differed dramatically. Tunisia initially achieved a negotiated constitutional transition. Egypt saw the return of military dominance. Libya descended into prolonged civil conflict, while Yemen entered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Together, these experiences underscore an enduring lesson: removing rulers without strengthening institutions rarely produces lasting democratic change. For South Asia, sustainable democratic reform depends less on replacing individual leaders than on rebuilding the institutions that organise political power. Youth movements can play an important role by advocating transitional constitutional and institutional reform commissions that bring together young lawyers, academics, technocrats, policy professionals, and civil society representatives. Their agenda should also include judicial independence, electoral integrity, civil service reform, stronger oversight institutions, and more effective legislative accountability. Digital mobilisation can amplify public grievances, but it cannot by itself draft constitutions, reform public institutions, or build resilient democracies. That requires broad and sustained coalitions involving labour unions, bar councils, journalists, academics, and civil society organisations long after the energy of street protests has faded. Bangladesh’s 2024 movement, alongside similar experiences in India, Pakistan, and the Arab Spring, shows that removing a government is only the first step. Toppling a government is an event; building institutions is a generational project. In the end, the true measure of democratic success is not which leaders fall, but whether stronger institutions emerge in their place.

Pakistan has debated the elimination of riba—a Quranic term subjected to judicial interpretation and theological discourse but still lacking a precise statutory definition—for decades. Judicial decisions have been delivered, commissions constituted, reports prepared, appeals filed and withdrawn, deadlines announced and Islamic banking expanded. The central intellectual and legislative task, however, remains incomplete. We have not developed a precise, comprehensive and operational definition of the economic practices that must be prohibited. This omission is not merely academic. No financial system can be reconstructed around a prohibition that is expressed only as a moral declaration. A law [Who will draft Riba Prohibition Law? Minute Mirror, April 7, 2026] must identify the transaction, the prohibited increment, the parties affected, the substance to be examined and the consequences of violation. It must also distinguish an unlawful return on money from lawful earnings arising from trade, labour, services, ownership and commercial risk. The first requirement of a serious programme for the elimination of riba is clarity. Riba is commonly translated as interest/usury. This translation is useful but incomplete. Modern interest is one of its most important manifestations, particularly where a lender advances money and contractually claims an additional amount merely because the borrower is allowed time to repay. The prohibition, however, cannot be confined to instruments carrying the label “interest”. Nor can every commercial gain, deferred price or fixed payment be declared riba. The distinction lies in the legal and economic substance of the transaction. Where money is advanced as a loan and the lender is guaranteed an increase over the principal, the return does not arise from ownership of a productive asset, provision of a service, participation in business or exposure to commercial loss. It arises from the loan itself and the passage of time. The borrower must pay the increase whether the borrowed funds generate profit, produce loss, meet a medical emergency or finance bare survival. This asymmetry lies at the heart of the problem. Capital is protected; return is predetermined; risk is shifted to the borrower. Trade operates differently. A trader purchases or produces an asset, assumes the risks of ownership, incurs costs, faces the possibility of loss and sells the asset at a profit. The profit is not earned merely because money has been unavailable to another person for a period. It is connected with property, exchange, enterprise and market risk. Lease income also rests upon a different foundation. An owner permits another person to use an asset while retaining the liabilities associated with ownership. Rent represents consideration for the use of the asset. The arrangement becomes questionable when the supposed owner bears no meaningful ownership risk and the entire structure is merely a cash loan disguised through documents. Partnership profit has another character. Partners combine capital, work, expertise or enterprise. Profit is divided according to an agreed formula permitted by the applicable juristic principles, while financial loss follows the capital placed at risk. A partner cannot lawfully guarantee himself a fixed return upon capital and compel the other partner to bear every commercial loss. These distinctions are recognised, with variations, across the major Muslim schools. They differ on matters such as the permissible relationship between capital contribution and profit-sharing ratios, conditions attached to contracts, possession, agency and the allocation of particular risks. They do not treat every profit as riba. Nor do they permit a partner to convert genuine risk participation into a guaranteed return on money. A modern Prohibition of Riba law must preserve these distinctions. The difficulty is that contemporary finance has developed techniques through which a loan can be divided into several formally separate contracts. An institution may purchase an asset for a few moments, sell it to the customer at a marked-up price, obtain comprehensive security, transfer every economic risk to the customer and calculate its return by reference to the prevailing interest rate. The transaction may satisfy documentary requirements while reproducing the economic substance of conventional lending. The institution receives a predetermined return; the customer bears the commercial risk; and the institution’s temporary ownership exists mainly to legitimise the financing charge. This does not mean that murabaha, ijarah or diminishing musharakah are inherently invalid. Each can serve a legitimate commercial purpose. Murabaha can facilitate an actual purchase where the financier genuinely acquires and assumes responsibility for the asset before selling it. Ijarah can finance the use of an asset where the lessor retains real ownership obligations. Diminishing musharakah can support home ownership where the parties genuinely share ownership and the customer gradually acquires the financier’s units. The problem arises when these contracts are treated as legal devices for guaranteeing the same return that would have been received under an interest-bearing loan. A workable definition must therefore contain both a formal and a substantive test. The formal test will examine the legal category of the contract. The substantive test will determine whether the financier has provided an asset, service or productive participation and whether it has assumed a genuine risk corresponding to its return. This test should not be misunderstood as hostility towards fixed prices. A lawful sale price may be fixed. Rent may be determined in advance. A service fee may be agreed. The existence of a fixed amount does not by itself establish riba. The decisive question is what the payment represents. A fee charged for maintaining an account, transferring funds, valuing property, arranging documentation or providing an identifiable professional service may be legitimate. A “service fee” calculated as a percentage of a loan, increasing with time and unrelated to the actual cost or nature of the service may be interest under another name. The same care is required in relation to delayed payment. A seller, who supplies goods on deferred payment, may charge a price higher than the immediate cash price, provided one price is finally agreed when the contract is concluded. Once the debt has been created, however, an additional amount cannot ordinarily be imposed merely because the debtor requires more time. This is where many modern systems institutionalise exploitation. A

The word “terrorism” was not used for the same purposes in the 1970s for what it is used today. Back in those days the word terrorism was often related to insurgencies that were driven by concrete grievances rather than being a form of immoral intentions. The main entertainer driving the word “terrorism” to a whole new evil definition was none other than Benjamin Netanyahu- a man born in Isreal and raised in the United States of America, son of a Hebrew teacher.   This was the beginning of the international propaganda that would take place for decades to come and permanently shift the image of millions of muslims worldwide- a stamp of “terrorists” being posted on them. Benjamin Netanyahu was well aware of how the rising media worked, going on numerous podcasts, interviews and convincing people watching him from all continents on how the Palestinians deserved no state. He was the bridge between Zionists in Israel and English speaking jews in America for he was raised as an English speaker and knew how to convince otherwise. His biggest breakout was his brother Johnathan being the only one killed in war, and allowing him to use his blood and name to open non profits and involve himself in politics.    If you have been chronically online for the past few years you must have come across statements like “self defense against Hamas”, and may have wondered what on earth did Hamas do that resulted in the death of millions of children and women alike? For starters,Hamas is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist political and militant organization that has governed the Gaza Strip. However, it has grown into something much deeper.    A video surfaced of Benjamin Netanyahu having a conversation and indicating how keeping Hamas in power allows them to “justify” their attacks on Palestine, as far as admitting how crucial it is to have a body to blame and continue with his war crimes. “Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal” said Zohran Mamdani the mayor of New York in his recent instagram post. This much the whole world agrees on. The horrors committed in Palestine are often compared to the Nazi regime and even the war crimes of Genghis Khan.    However, recently his attacks on Lebanon have made him unpopular among his allies sitting in the white house as well as most of the European nations who already were past enduring him. Apart from the global allies, his seat at his own parliament is losing its grip as more and more corruption cases involving him are piling up. It is expected that he will end up in jail or exile. Can he use his motives with Hamas and create more blinding propaganda to rest his case- that much we do not know. What we do know is that both the right wings and left wings are tolerating the same old Hamas self defense story.   It feels really ironic how according to Netanyahu all the Hamas headquarters are hidden under schools and hospitals which makes it crucial to bomb them, not as much ironic how they pass on flyers indicating citizens in Palestine to leave their homes hence they survive the upcoming bombings. No matter how hard the narrative is pushed that it is a war, and no matter how much the defination of “genocide” is discussed, it is evident that this is a brutality being committed in the twenty first century where every narrative can be clearly seen and every horrific crime witnessed.   In every Palestinian and Lebanese house is sitting an Anne Frank whose story will never come out since everything is burned and any aid coming is met with closed borders and brutal IDF opposition. No matter how much funding they spend on anti palestinian propaganda or call the saving of children in gaza as being “anti semitic”- it is known that this is no “war”.  

Calling Babarloi Bypass the “Strait of Hormuz of Sindh” would not be an exaggeration. In Sindh’s nationalist political discourse, the name Babarloi Bypass has repeatedly resurfaced in connection with the “Babarloi Dharna” (sit-in). Babarloi is an ancient settlement in Khairpur district. According to historical accounts, including Tareekh-e-Masoomi and Tarkhan Nama, this was the place where Mughal Emperor Humayun, after being defeated by Sher Shah Suri and forced into exile, stayed for nearly six months before heading towards Iran. Today, Babarloi Bypass has emerged as a crucial junction on the National Highway N-5. This strategic corridor connects Sindh with Punjab, Balochistan and upper Sindh, making it a vital artery for trade and transportation. Economically, Punjab and Sindh are deeply interdependent. On one hand, Punjab relies on Sindh for imported goods arriving through Karachi’s ports, including machinery, industrial raw material, chemicals and electronics. It also depends on Sindh for the transportation of oil and petroleum products, as some of Pakistan’s major oil refineries and import terminals are located in Sindh. On the other hand, Sindh depends heavily on Punjab for wheat, flour, sugar, textiles, engineering goods, agricultural products, poultry, dairy and other food supplies. However, in comparative terms, blocking Babarloi Bypass on the N-5 route would cause a far greater economic disruption to Punjab than to Sindh because of Punjab’s larger dependence on this transit corridor for trade flows. Whether the issue is the controversial six-canal project or the debate over the creation of new provinces, some political stakeholders in Sindh view Babarloi Bypass as a pressure point against Punjab and the federal government. Their strategy has been to send a message that before raising questions about the division of Sindh, Punjab and the federation must recognise the consequences of alienating the province. For these groups, Babarloi Bypass has become Sindh’s equivalent of a strategic pressure point — a place through which pressure can be exerted on the federal centre. Last year, a major protest was staged at Babarloi Bypass (Khairpur, Sindh) against the federal government’s proposed project to construct six new canals from the Indus River. The eleven-day sit-in, organised by lawyers, nationalist parties, farmers’ organisations and civil society groups, continued from April 18 to April 29, 2025. As a result, the National Highway N-5 remained blocked at Babarloi Bypass, disrupting movement between Sindh and Punjab. The transportation of goods was almost suspended, affecting supplies of vegetables, fruits, cotton, rice and other agricultural commodities to Punjab. Several industries faced delays in receiving raw materials, while hundreds of trucks remained stranded for days, causing losses worth millions of rupees to transporters and traders. The protest eventually ended after negotiations between a delegation of the Sindh government and the lawyers’ action committee. The agreement included the following assurances: The Council of Common Interests (CCI) would decide the future of the controversial canal project, and no progress would be made without consensus among all provinces. The government assured the issuance of an official notification addressing the lawyers’ demands and promised to provide relevant legal documents. The Babarloi Dharna was considered one of the significant political protests of 2025 because it increased pressure on the federal government, disrupted the land link between Sindh and Punjab for several days, and played a role in bringing the canal issue back to the platform of the Council of Common Interests.   The following year, Babarloi Bypass once again became the centre of a major protest. On July 23, 2026, a second sit-in was staged, this time not against the canal project but to demand the recovery of 27 missing children from Sindh, including the high-profile case of Priya Kumari. The protest was attended by lawyers, civil society activists, nationalist political workers, families of missing children and ordinary citizens. During the protest, the debate over the creation of new provinces, particularly from Karachi and federal circles, once again gained momentum. As a result, Sindh’s nationalist politics was once again seen aligning itself with anti-centre and anti-Punjab sentiments during the demonstration. Moreover, some separatist elements reportedly raised slogans such as “Pakistan Na Khappe” (We do not want Pakistan) and “Pakistan Murdabad” (Down with Pakistan) during the sit-in. However, unlike the previous year, the protest was brought to an end by the Sindh government with the assistance of police authorities. The Babarlo police, in their own account of the incident, accused the protesters of obstructing police vehicles, resorting to stone-pelting, and raising anti-Pakistan slogans during the standoff. According to reports, police took action to disperse the protesters, several individuals were arrested, and later cases were registered against 13 named persons and around 150 unidentified individuals under various provisions, including anti-terrorism laws. The manner in which the Sindh government dealt with this year’s sit-in suggests a different political approach compared to nationalist leaders. It indicates that the provincial government was reluctant to escalate tensions with either the Punjab government or the Pakistan Peoples Party’s political partners at the federal level. The Sindh government also appeared unwilling to allow the closure of Babarloi Bypass to turn the issue into a larger confrontation. The PPP leadership is aware that preventing child abductions and ensuring the recovery of missing children is primarily the responsibility of the Sindh government; neither Punjab nor the federal government can be held directly accountable for such matters. Therefore, before nationalist groups could create a situation that might politically embarrass the PPP at the federal level, the Sindh government moved to end the sit-in and restrict the influence of protest organisers. Whether the two major political parties have reached an understanding behind closed doors under the spirit of the Charter of Democracy remains a matter of speculation. However, the way both parties continue to engage in verbal confrontations during the Azad Jammu and Kashmir elections appears, to some observers, to be part of a broader political strategy.