KARACHI: As dusk falls in the city, a few neighborhood youngsters gather for a game of cricket outside a two-storey house on the outskirts of the city.

A man standing outside a shack on one side of the road watches them quietly but seems to have no desire to join in the game.

This is the spot where exactly one year ago, a newly widowed young woman with her confused and wailing 11-month-old orphaned son bid farewell to her dead husband inside an ambulance carrying his remains flown in from Mach Jail.

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One year on, the baby has started to walk, his mother’s tears have dried, too, as her entire focus turns to bringing up the little boy like his father could have been ─ before he lost his way ─ a happy, studious and hard-working boy with a love for the sports.

But the more we think about it now, the more we are sure that it was his friendship with one of them, Fahim, which was the turning point. The world today knows that boy by the name of ‘Fahim Commando’, who has also met his fate.

Nusrat, Saulat Mirza's brother

“It was the early 1990s. I used to make video films of celebratory events and he would assist me. Those were difficult times of unrest, distrust and lawlessness. The Pakhtuns and the Urdu-speaking were at each other’s throat. There were also people like us, always getting caught in the crossfire for no apparent fault of our own. To show efficiency, law enfo­­rcement agencies picked on the innocent. My brother was a sensitive soul. Bad experiences that we preferred putting behind us at the time, he couldn’t forget about,” says Nusrat Ali Khan, one of Saulat Mirza’s elder brothers.

“We used to live in Block ‘S’ of North Nazimabad. We thought he went out to toss the ball around and play cricket with the other neighbourhood boys. He was a very good fast bowler after all. But the more we think about it now, the more we are sure that it was his friendship with one of them, Fahim, which was the turning point. The world today knows that boy by the name of ‘Fahim Commando’, who has also met his fate. Joining forces with him, my brother only wanted to be someone whose family no one would mess with. But I guess once you are in the wrong company, you get pulled into all kinds of things.”

Another older brother, Farhat Ali Khan, is sad about how his brother’s name is still being used for personal gains by politicians. “I hear Farooq Sattar, I hear Mustafa Kamal. These people turned their backs on him when he needed them the most. He was a loyal worker, but look at them. See how they are still cashing in on his name,” he says before sharing an old video of a qawwali programme of Amjad Sabri organised inside the Karachi central jail. Saulat is seen shouting slogans of ‘Jeay Altaf’ in the video. “This recording is a necessary on the play list of all MQM jalsas,” the brother says.

“You know, others used to extort money taking his name and he wouldn’t have a clue about it. Here he would be borrowing Rs100 or Rs200 from one of us to put fuel into his motorbike and there men were using his name for extortion. When he found out about it, he would even forgive the persons doing this, saying that they were poor boys. This is how our little brother destroyed himself,” says Farhat, shaking his head.

“He was the youngest in 11 siblings. How we wish we had paid more attention to his movements when he was disappearing from home at odd times. But we were busy in our own lives then. He was a very sensitive boy. And the people he got mixed up with used this to brainwash him. Still, it is good that he saw through them in the end.

“There was a boy named Mohammad Ehsaan in his death cell here in Karachi. Saulat arranged for blood money to have him pardoned. Then he wouldn’t leave Saulat and kept visiting him in jail. That’s when Saulat scolded him and told him that he had helped him so that he could live the life of a free man. He went away then. But Ehsaan showed up at Saulat’s funeral. Now he has built this shack for himself across from our home. He says he will not leave as he is here to protect the children in our family,” the brother says.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2016