On Oct 12, 1970 one of the finest post-independence Urdu poets, Mustafa Zaidi, died in Karachi in mysterious circumstances. Here’s how this newspaper reported his demise. “A former CSP officer, Mustafa Ali Zaidi, allegedly committed suicide by taking poison yesterday. He was found dead in his Mohammad Ali Housing Society apartment. A woman, also believed to have taken poison, was found lying unconscious in another room of the apartment. She was identified as Shahnaz Begum.”

It did not take much time for the investigations into the death to start because the late poet was also “one of the 303 officers against whom action had been taken by the government.” The ‘action’ was initiated on charges of corruption.

On Oct 17, 1970 the case was handed over to the Sindh Crime Branch by the Inspector-General of Police, Khwaja Masrur Hasan. A spokesman for the branch said: “We will conduct the inquiry impartially and without any fear or favour,” adding that the case would be dealt with on the basis of evidence, circumstances and medical reports. The only thing that was now being keenly awaited was the result of the chemical analysis on the viscera and stomach wash of Mr Zaidi and the woman, Mrs Shahnaz. The spokesman pointed out the Crime Branch was to proceed on the assumptions of a suicide pact or a well-hatched conspiracy to murder.

According to one account, Mrs Shahnaz fainted when she was told by the police that Mr Zaidi had passed away. It happened at the end of her cross-examination at her residence which took place in the presence of her husband.

As far as city life was concerned, things that week were, as usual, riddled with civic issues. The problem of water supply charges that residents of F B Area and Nazimabad were faced with and for which they did not see eye to eye with the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) (as has been mentioned in this column) was still a bone of contentions between the two parties.

On Oct 12, Z. H. Lari, a council Muslim League leader, argued that the governor of Sindh should call a conference of the representatives of F B Area to discuss and decide both the rates of water supply and the method of recovering arrears, if any. He was of the view that the numbers imposed by the KDA on the two neighbourhoods had created consternation among their residents.

Speaking of rates, on Oct 15, the Pakistan Insurance Corporation (PIC) asked Llyod’s Underwriters, London, to quote rates for giving insurance cover to keepers of dangerous animals at the Karachi Zoo. The PIC had approached the company following a request received from the zoo authorities for providing insurance to all those who were exposed to hazards of life while handling dangerous animals.

And what was happening in the world of art and culture? Well, on Oct 12 the National Academy of Theatre Arts Karachi (NATAK) was launched with the staging, the previous night, of the play Qissa Jagtey Sotey Ka. The drama, produced and directed by Ali Ahmed, was put up in the city some years ago but, it was believed, its hard hitting satire was still relevant as it conveyed contemporary conflicts through the familiar Arabian Nights plot.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2020