Giving up

After subsequent retarded fights with Abbas (ironically over class and elitism because I declined to pick him up when we went to Romana’s) the trail seems to be growing cold. No one is reading the blog, which I assumed many people would be interested in. I have been forced to question why I pursued this story so deeply. Not many readers out there have an idea of how strenuous it is to go after a story with so many moral implications.

At every step of the way people, neighbours, her father, the police, the WMLO, have all questioned why WHY WHY are we doing this in such depth. Other reporters from other newspapers, Tahir Siddiqui from Dawn, for example, talked to Abbas about the story. Some reporters from Geo and my friend Farhan Reza complimented me and Abbas on our work. Some people get it, other’s don’t.

Each day I have been waking up, reading the blog and newspapers with coffee and then talking to Abbas. Inevitably, then we receive a phonecall from the police or phone them ourselves and dash out the door to either go to the police station or the flat or to meet people who could give us any information on the case. These efforts usually last until 6pm in the evening and starving I make it to the office in hellish traffic.

To get back from Gulistan-e-Jauhar I have to trek all the way through Shahra-e-Faisal rush-hour traffic, into the centre near Hotel Metropole and then up the arduous I. I. Chundrigar Road. By the time I reach office I am irritable and despairing.

I then have to make the pages and while Urooj and Cecil have started much of the task needs to be wrapped up, which takes the longest. Then at some point Abbas and I sit down and write out the story. There is no peace in the newsroom and each time I write it I feel like I’m ready to scream.

Hello world!

D

This is Nisha Amin, a 21-year-old girl whose death I covered with the city desk’s crime reporter Abbas Naqvi on Feb 4, 2007 (Sunday). The case has deepened and we are likely to  continue to report follow-ups or developments. The links for the stories so far are pasted below, if anyone’s interested.

Nisha’s friend text messaged me right now saying that her aunt wanted protection and wanted media coverage. This immediately made me suspicious.

“Get up,” I said when Abbas answered his phone groggily. “The aunt wants to talk. She says she needs protection.”

“But the police are probably giving her protection.”

“Why would she ask for it from us? Isn’t that wierd?”

“Hmm,” came his reply.

“Why does she want media coverage?” I stared at the front page of our section. The second story we covered was beautifully displayed with pictures of Nisha, quotes from her friends on Orkut. Last night, after I got back from work, my sister told me that there were a lot of dead people on Orkut. Their families and friends kept posting scraps on their page which became something of a memorial.

But this was not my first encounter with the eerie world of cyber space. There is something about this story that stays elusive. As reporters and journalists, even desk editors, you get used to the fact that most of the time you are dealing with events in retrospect, intangible fleeting incidents that have happened and all you are doing is scrambling around afterwards in the ghostly world of their aftermath, trying to piece them together again. This what Nisha’s story was about.

We did not speak to anyone who said they were present when she died. She just died and all we could see was her body and a mess of clues that we couldn’t make sense of. We weren’t even sure if the ghostly trail we were following, from the mortuary to the flat and beyond, would lead us somewhere.

The day after the story appeared, Nisha’s friends called me up and said they urgently needed to talk. It was the most gratifying phonecall I had ever received in my career; someone had read the story we had done and contacted us with more information. Abbas and I rushed to meet the girls despite deadlines and all other work.

HERE ARE THE LINKS TO ALL THE STORIES WE HAVE BEEN DOING ON NISHA’S CASE. THEY ARE IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF BEING PUBLISHED IN DAILY TIMES, THE KARACHI EDITION. FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN GETTING IN TOUCH WITH US THE NEWSPAPER LISTS OUR TELEPHONE NUMBERS.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=200726\story_6-2-2007_pg12_1

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=200727\story_7-2-2007_pg12_2

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=200728\story_8-2-2007_pg12_2

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=200729\story_9-2-2007_pg12_7

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20072\10\story_10-2-2007_pg12_10