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​To diagnose the profound structural, intellectual, and economic stagnation gripping contemporary Pakistani society, one cannot analyze it merely through the lens of conventional lamentation or superficial moralizing. This pervasive crisis of the state and society is not the byproduct of a sudden natural calamity, but rather the logical culmination of a long-standing political economy where the unequal distribution of state resources, flawed policymaking mechanisms, and elite capture have systematically closed off all avenues for collective intellect. The devastating budget cuts inflicted on the social sector—specifically education, healthcare, and research institutions—under the relentless guise of International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout packages and structural adjustment have compounded this crisis. When foundational pillars of a state are subordinated to personal self-interest, temporary political loyalties, and non-productive extravagances instead of fostering a productive economy, a leadership crisis ceases to be an accidental anomaly and entrenches itself as a permanent, systemic reality. The roots of this historical tragedy undeniably lie in the colonial state apparatus engineered by the British Empire to secure its subjugation over this region; yet the tragic reality is that post-independence, the domestic elite simply stepped into the shoes of the white master, retaining this exploitative machinery intact while refining it to serve their own interests. ​A hard look at ground realities and economic indicators reveals a deeply alarming landscape. The state’s warped priorities are laid bare in the fact that the lion’s share of federal and provincial budgets is routinely swallowed by debt servicing, non-productive administrative and defense expenditures, and lavish exemptions for the privileged class. Conversely, human capital development—education, scientific research, and health—languishes at the very bottom of the national agenda, treated as an unwelcome afterthought. Data from the World Bank and UNESCO confirm that Pakistan allocates a mere 0.2 to 0.3 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to Research and Development (R&D), whereas dynamic economies like South Korea invest upwards of 4.8 percent and Israel surpasses 5 percent. This truncated, abysmally low allocation compared to regional peers is a damning indictment. When a nation’s educational budget is starved, and university leadership is appointed through political patronage, personal recommendations, and favoritism rather than merit, vision, and academic pedigree, the system ceases to radiate light, breeding instead sycophancy, boot-licking, and intellectual sterility. Such a decayed framework might churn out compliant manual laborers and clerical cogs for offices, but it will never produce a conscious citizen or independent critic courageous enough to question flawed state policies. ​The most agonizing casualty of this policy paralysis is the relentless brain drain—the systematic migration of our brightest minds abroad. Immigration bureaus and professional research data confirm that Pakistan’s finest intellects—top-tier engineers, specialized surgeons and physicians, global IT experts, scientists, and dedicated researchers—are abandoning their homeland in droves for Europe, North America, and the Gulf states. The state has never paused to calculate the immense national cost of educating and training a youth only to witness that capital, and the future it represents, vanish across borders. When policymakers trample over merit to appease political cronies, the meritocratic class finds itself fighting a losing battle for sheer survival. This is not mere emigration; it is the intellectual execution of an entire generation, sacrificed at the altar of incompetent governance. Nations like Singapore, Malaysia, and South Korea reached a historic crossroads where they discarded empty political rhetoric in favor of rigid meritocracy, transparent governance, and rigorous education, whereas our polity cultivated a culture that treats politics as a lucrative enterprise and the state as spoils of war. The dividends of that mindset surround us today. ​Another compounding driver of this societal decline and intellectual regression is the entrenched feudal and imperial character of our state structure, which bars the common human and ordinary citizen from accessing basic constitutional and human rights. In a stratified society where the rule of law is selectively enforced against the weak while endless judicial backdoors remain open for the powerful, justice becomes an elusive mirage. The ordinary citizen must endure decades of legal labyrinths just to secure elementary justice, while the resource-hoarding elite exploit every legislative loophole to remain above the law. This glaring injustice has bred an overwhelming sense of alienation, systemic frustration, and moral decay. When the younger generation observes that honesty, hard work, and integrity hold zero currency in this system, and that influence, corruption, cronyism, and deception are the lone keys to advancement, the moral fabric of society shatters. This ethical erosion metastasizes into a national malignancy when state patronage actively paralyzes intellectual spaces and universities, stifling critical discourse and strangling freedom of thought. ​Escaping this deep quagmire and resolving the crisis of leadership requires courageous structural reforms. First and foremost, the state must fundamentally overhaul its national priorities, elevating scientific self-reliance, research autonomy, and intellectual sovereignty to the core of national security alongside physical defense. Pushing the cumulative budget for education, science, and research to a minimum of four percent of GDP without delay is non-negotiable if we harbor any genuine ambitions of building a knowledge economy. Second, purging public administration, the civil bureaucracy, and state enterprises of political interference while establishing the ironclad supremacy of merit is paramount to ensure decision-making is driven solely by professional capability. We must transition away from traditional public service delivery by handing policy formulation over to empowered task forces composed of domestic and international technocrats. Concurrently, genuine autonomy must be restored to the Higher Education Commission (HEC), backed by stringent constitutional safeguards against political appointments in academia. To stanch the bleeding of brain drain and transform it into a “brain gain,” the state must proactively craft an attractive, enabling ecosystem that leverages the capital and expertise of the overseas Pakistani diaspora through modern remote research initiatives. ​True, visionary leadership rises above the hollow temptation of cheap, temporary popularity to lay enduring foundations for generations unborn. Until those occupying our corridors of power step outside the narrow confines of personal, familial, and factional self-interest, and until society sheds emotional sloganeering in favor of scientific, logical, and critical inquiry, the vicious

By Aleena Saif Ullah The writer is an MPhil Scholar in International Relations, specializing in global defence and security, University of the Punjab, Lahore. On February 28, the first day of Operation Epic Fury, a strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, in Iran’s Hormozgan province. Iranian state media reported that 168 children and 14 adults were killed. Anadolu reported two strikes roughly forty minutes apart. President Trump said on March 7 that in his opinion Iran had done it, citing Iranian inaccuracy with munitions. Bellingcat had already established otherwise. Its researchers identified a Tomahawk cruise missile — a munition no other belligerent in the conflict fields — in footage released by Iran’s Mehr agency, and geolocated the strike sequence. The New York Times, the Associated Press and CNN reached compatible conclusions through independent satellite and video analysis. By March 11, NPR reported that a preliminary Pentagon assessment had determined the United States was at fault. Five months later, the accountability failure is not the one I described when I first wrote about this case, and the actual failure is more instructive. A process was initiated. On March 13, Secretary Hegseth announced a formal command investigation, with CENTCOM appointing a senior officer from outside the command to lead it — the correct procedural choice. Lawmakers have said that officer submitted an initial report in April. CENTCOM has held it since. On May 19, Admiral Brad Cooper told lawmakers under oath that the investigation was complex, near completion, and that “I’m fully committed to transparency” once it concluded. No findings have been published. Then in July, CNN reported the detail that reframes the case. Within a week of the strike, the first two stages of the battle damage assessment were complete, establishing that American forces had hit the location. The third stage — the standard review in which Defense Intelligence Agency analysts examine the full body of satellite imagery and intelligence to determine holistically what occurred — had not been ordered as of early July. One source familiar with the matter told CNN there had been no detailed analysis and that CENTCOM had locked down the investigation. NBC reported that preliminary findings pointed to outdated intelligence as the likely cause. This is a different kind of institutional failure from the one international lawyers usually describe, and it is worse. An absent process can be demanded. A process that ran, produced a document, and stopped is much harder to move, because officials can accurately say an investigation took place. The context makes it harder still. On May 13 the Pentagon’s own Inspector General found that the Department had systematically failed to implement its Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan, with all eleven objectives reclassified as at risk and the legally mandated Civilian Protection Center of Excellence lacking key staff and leadership. The architecture built specifically to prevent and account for incidents like Minab had been allowed to decay before the war that tested it. Congress has asked the right questions and been ignored. A letter led by Senator Chris Van Hollen and signed by more than forty senators asked Secretary Hegseth directly whether American forces conducted the strikes, what the intended target was, whether AI tools were used in targeting, and whether a no-strike list was established before operations began. Answers were requested by March 18. More than 150 House members signed a parallel letter on the broader civilian toll. The comparison the Pentagon itself invites is unflattering. As NBC noted, the Department has publicly disclosed its role in comparable incidents before: a special forces raid in Yemen, a bombing in Iraq that killed more than a hundred civilians, the strike on an Afghan hospital that killed at least forty-two, a drone attack in Afghanistan that killed ten. Disclosure in those cases was not generous, but it happened. What Minab demonstrates is that the binding constraint on accountability is not evidence. Volunteer open-source investigators, working entirely from public material, established the essential facts within nine days. The state that conducted the strike established them internally within seven. The constraint is that no mechanism exists to compel publication of a report a government has decided not to publish — not the Rome Statute, to which the United States is not a party; not the Security Council, where it holds a veto; and not the Inspector General, who can find institutional failure but cannot release another command’s findings. One lever remains, and it is domestic rather than international. Congress can require declassified release of the findings through the National Defense Authorization Act. Whether it does will indicate more about the state of accountability for civilian harm than any further open-source analysis. The evidence is not missing. The report is not missing. Both exist. Neither can be read.    

​As Pakistan celebrates its Independence Day on August 14, the twentieth-century history of the South Asian subcontinent demands a reflective analysis that goes far beyond a mere anti-colonial struggle or a simplistic narrative of imperial power transition. The creation of Pakistan represents a profound, philosophical, and structural saga centered on collective economic survival, uneven development, and the discovery of a modern political identity. Western Orientalists and traditional nationalist historians of India have often tended to reduce the genesis of Pakistan to emotional religious fervor or the peripheral consequence of a British “divide and rule” strategy. However, when analyzed through the prisms of political economy and structural analysis, a distinct reality emerges: the Muslim demand for a separate homeland was fundamentally a rational, material response to systemic economic marginalization, structural imbalances, and the acute objective fear of becoming a permanent minority under Westminster-style majoritarian democracy. This trajectory unfolded with unbroken intellectual, economic, and constitutional continuity from the post-eighteenth-century decline down to the geopolitical remapping of 14th August 1947. ​To comprehend the evolution of Muslim nationalism in South Asia, a rigorous analysis of the post-1857 economic and structural disruption is indispensable. The collapse of the Mughal state and the consolidation of East India Company rule subjected Muslim society to a catastrophic economic crisis rooted in colonial land and fiscal policies. Through the Permanent Settlement of 1793 in the Muslim-majority region of Bengal, traditional landholding rights were systematically stripped from Muslims and transferred to a newly created non-Muslim landed class. As the historian W. W. Hunter observed in his seminal work, The Indian Musalmans, British administrative interventions pushed the Muslims of Bengal—who had previously constituted the ruling elite and agrarian proprietors—into a condition of severe peasant impoverishment and structural decay. This agricultural dislocation was paralleled by institutional disenfranchisement. The replacement of Persian with English as the official language in 1835 instantly alienated the Muslim intelligentsia and professional classes from the bureaucracy, judiciary, and civil service. In his analysis of the post-colonial state, the political economist Hamza Alavi conceptualized this segment as the “salariat”—a bureaucratic-bourgeois element whose economic dislocation and exclusion from state patronage generated deep structural grievances that ultimately fueled the demand for a distinct national identity. ​As industrial and commercial capitalism took root in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, its structure was inherently skewed. India’s emerging indigenous bourgeoisie—comprising Marwari, Gujarati, and Parsi capitalist networks—monopolized banking, insurance, and primary manufacturing. In burgeoning industrial nodes such as Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras, Muslims were largely relegated to the ranks of agrarian labor, petty artisans, or urban proletariats. As economic historian Benjamin Zachariah notes, the nature of Indian industrialization created a stark spatial and structural imbalance: Muslim-majority provinces like Bengal, Punjab, Sindh, and the North-West Frontier became agrarian hinterlands relegated to supplying raw materials—such as jute, cotton, and wheat—for external processing. While Bengal produced the vast majority of the world’s raw jute, the processing mills, financial capital, and commercial profits were strictly concentrated in Calcutta under non-Muslim mercantile ownership. This economic asymmetry solidified a growing realization among Muslims that an integrated, highly centralized economy in a united India would permanently trap them in an exploited periphery. ​Against this backdrop of economic and institutional decline, the intellectual trajectory of Muslim nationalism evolved in a deliberate, phased manner. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s Aligarh Movement sought the scientific renaissance and modernizing realignment of Muslim society. As early as the 1880s, Sir Syed critically dissected the mechanics of British parliamentary democracy, arguing that numerical majoritarianism in a multinational, heterogeneous subcontinent would inevitably result in the permanent hegemony of an ethnically and economically dominant majority. By the 1930s, Allama Muhammad Iqbal elevated this political economy argument into a robust philosophical and territorial framework. In his historic 1930 Allahabad Address, Iqbal rejected Western territorial nationalism, asserting that South Asian Muslims constituted a distinct nation in their own right, given their unique socio-legal and cultural matrix. Crucially, Iqbal linked the preservation of Muslim spiritual and cultural identity directly to territorial and economic self-determination in Muslim-majority regions. As political scientist Paul Brass observed through his theoretical lens of instrumentalism, Muslim nationalism in South Asia was not merely an abstract identity movement, but a structured mobilization by an educated, politically conscious elite seeking an equitable distribution of state power and economic resources. ​Translating this intellectual framework into a tangible, international constitutional reality became the historic mission of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Rather than relying on hagiographic narratives, Jinnah’s political evolution must be evaluated through his rigorous legal and constitutional record. As historian Ayesha Jalal demonstrates, Jinnah’s primary objective remained the ironclad safeguarding of the economic, political, and administrative rights of Muslim-majority regions within the subcontinental architecture. For three decades, Jinnah operated as the foremost champion of constitutional guarantees within a united, federal India—evidenced by the Lucknow Pact of 1916 and his Fourteen Points of 1929. However, the centralized ethos of the 1928 Nehru Report, followed by the authoritarian conduct of Congress provincial ministries between 1937 and 1939, forced a decisive paradigm shift in Jinnah’s strategy. The twenty-eight months of Congress rule—marked by educational engineering, discriminatory economic measures, and the marginalization of Muslims in local administrations—proved that paper constitutional guarantees were fragile against an unchecked numerical majority. ​It was from the crucible of this constitutional failure that the Lahore Resolution of 1940 emerged, serving as the definitive blueprint for the creation of Pakistan. Jinnah articulated to the international community that the subcontinental impasse was not a minor minority-majority dispute or a sectarian problem, but an irreconcilable structural conflict between two distinct nations, two differing political economies, and two separate civilizational matrixes. The elections of 1945–46 delivered an overwhelming democratic mandate, confirming that Muslim agrarian masses, merchants, urban laborers, and young professionals unanimously viewed Pakistan as the sole guarantee of their economic emancipation and political sovereignty. Consequently, the Pakistan movement transformed from an elite constitutional debate into a broad-based socio-economic revolution. ​The emergence of Pakistan on August 14, 1947, remains a landmark event in global history, challenging classical theories of post-colonial state formation. It

In the digital era, crime has drastically transformed. These days, planned disinformation operations, hate speech, deepfakes and misinformation spread more quickly than traditional crimes, eroding public confidence, escalating tensions within communities and, in severe situations, inciting actual bloodshed. Police must change to protect the information environment as well, since Pakistan’s digital footprint keeps growing. Acknowledging the evolving security environment, Regional Police Officer (RPO) Sohail Akhtar Sukhera has established a Cyber Patrolling Cell in District Jhang as a pioneer model for the Faisalabad Region. By keeping an eye on dangerous online content, spotting emerging digital risks, recording evidence and organising prompt responses through legal processes, the initiative represents a shift from reactive policing to intelligence-led prevention. The framework emphasises adherence to existing legal safeguards while providing clearly defined monitoring categories, reporting channels and escalation procedures. The significance of this initiative extends beyond the boundaries of the Faisalabad Region. It reflects a reality increasingly recognised by law enforcement agencies worldwide: the internet has become an operational domain of public safety. Within hours, a fake video, manipulated image or coordinated disinformation campaign can generate fear, inflame sectarian tensions, undermine institutional legitimacy or provoke violence. Preventing harm in both physical and digital environments has therefore become an essential responsibility of modern policing. Cyber patrolling has already been integrated into contemporary law enforcement in several countries. The European Union’s Digital Services Act requires major digital platforms to mitigate systemic risks arising from coordinated misinformation and illegal content, while Europol strengthens cross-border cyber intelligence. Singapore, through the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), combines legal intervention with public digital literacy campaigns to counter online deception. The United Arab Emirates employs AI-driven cybercrime teams and real-time threat intelligence to combat online extremism and hate speech. In South Asia, Kerala Police’s Cyberdome demonstrates how collaboration among law enforcement agencies, cyber security professionals and academic institutions can strengthen cyber threat intelligence, digital forensics, online fraud investigations and disinformation monitoring. By identifying rumours, verifying information and reducing public panic during emergencies, Cyberdome has emerged as one of the region’s leading cyber policing models. Against this international backdrop, the Cyber Patrolling Cell established by RPO Sohail Akhtar Sukhera represents an important step towards institutionalising digital policing in Pakistan. While still evolving, it demonstrates an understanding that policing must anticipate threats before they materialise rather than merely responding after damage has occurred. However, technology alone cannot counter disinformation. International experience demonstrates that successful cyber patrolling depends upon robust institutions, specialised expertise and public trust. Pakistan should therefore consider several complementary reforms. First, dedicated Digital Threat Intelligence Units should be established within police organisations, integrating cyber investigators, OSINT analysts, digital forensic experts and behavioural analysts capable of identifying coordinated online influence operations. Second, law enforcement agencies should invest in artificial intelligence-assisted monitoring systems capable of detecting bot networks, coordinated disinformation campaigns, multilingual hate speech and AI-generated deepfake content while ensuring meaningful human oversight over enforcement decisions. Third, closer institutional collaboration is essential. Provincial police, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency, universities, technology companies and civil society organisations should operate through an integrated digital information-sharing mechanism. Cyber threats rarely respect institutional or provincial boundaries. Fourth, specialised partnerships with universities and research institutions should support continuous officer training in cyber intelligence, digital forensics, artificial intelligence and data analytics. Institutions such as NUST, FAST, Information Technology University Lahore and other research centres possess expertise that can strengthen law enforcement capacity. Fifth, transparent oversight mechanisms are indispensable. Periodic public reporting, independent legal oversight and clearly defined operational protocols can ensure that cyber patrolling remains lawful, proportionate and fully consistent with constitutional guarantees relating to freedom of expression and privacy. Effective cyber policing should enhance democratic resilience rather than weaken it. Finally, equal attention should be given to digital literacy. Citizens who can verify information, recognise manipulated content, identify deepfakes and report online abuse become active participants in protecting the information ecosystem. Public resilience remains the strongest defence against organised deception. The strategic importance of the information domain has surpassed that of physical infrastructure. Just as police patrol streets to deter conventional crime, responsible cyber patrolling has become essential to protecting democratic institutions, social cohesion and national security. Digital policing has become a fundamental responsibility of contemporary law enforcement, and Pakistan can no longer afford to treat it as an optional function. The Cyber Patrolling Cell established under the leadership of RPO Faisalabad Sohail Akhtar Sukhera should be viewed not merely as a regional initiative but as a policy experiment capable of informing Pakistan’s broader digital policing strategy. Strengthened through advanced technology, specialised training, transparent oversight and interagency cooperation, it offers a practical road map for developing a nationally integrated cyber patrolling framework that safeguards both public security and democratic resilience in the digital age.

Pakistan’s growing diplomatic influence has entered a new phase as Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir lead the country’s strategic engagement with the world, strengthening alliances and projecting Pakistan as an important voice in regional peace and security. The signing of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye represents a major milestone in Pakistan’s foreign and security policy. The agreement brings together three influential nations through a framework of collective defence, enhanced military cooperation and a shared commitment to regional stability. In recent months, Pakistan’s defence capabilities and strategic importance have received increased international attention. The role of the Pakistan Army in national security and regional stability has been a central factor in shaping Pakistan’s strategic partnerships, while Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir’s engagement with international counterparts has highlighted the importance of defence diplomacy in promoting peace and cooperation. The global perception of Pakistan’s strategic role has evolved as Islamabad has continued to demonstrate its capacity to engage with major powers and regional stakeholders. Under Field Marshal Asim Munir’s leadership, Pakistan’s military diplomacy has focused on strengthening partnerships, supporting stability and advancing dialogue as a pathway to resolving regional challenges. Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has complemented these efforts through active diplomatic outreach, engaging world leaders and strengthening Pakistan’s relationships with key allies. Whenever Pakistan’s leadership has engaged internationally, these visits have increasingly focused on expanding cooperation, improving economic ties and promoting peace initiatives. Pakistan’s diplomatic role in encouraging dialogue during tensions involving the United States and Iran also attracted international attention. US President Donald Trump acknowledged Pakistan’s leadership efforts in supporting peace and dialogue, reflecting the country’s potential role as a constructive bridge between nations. Pakistan continues to maintain strong strategic relations with major international partners, including China, while also enjoying deep historical and security ties with Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and other Middle Eastern countries. Iran has repeatedly highlighted the importance of its relationship with Pakistan and recognised the value of regional cooperation. The Makkah Declaration further strengthens this strategic momentum. The agreement reflects the shared commitment of Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan to collective security and regional stability. It establishes that any armed attack against one of the three states will be regarded as an attack against all, while enhancing defence cooperation, military coordination and strategic collaboration. Built on historic relations, Islamic solidarity and common interests, the declaration aims to strengthen collective deterrence and contribute towards peace, security and prosperity. The emerging partnership between Pakistan’s political and defence leadership is being viewed by supporters as a coordinated national effort to protect Pakistan’s interests and expand its international role. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s diplomatic engagement and Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir’s strategic approach have together shaped a more proactive foreign policy outlook. The Makkah summit could become a defining moment in Pakistan’s international journey—strengthening its alliances, enhancing its strategic relevance and reinforcing its message that Pakistan seeks peace through cooperation, dialogue and responsible global engagement.

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.