THIS past week was Arshad Sharif’s third death anniversary. Back in 2022, he was killed under mysterious circumstances in Kenya, far away from Pakistan. That year was a chaotic one in Pakistan, chaos which is easier to ascribe to politics than to point out more uncomfortable truths; and it also claimed Arshad Sharif’s life.

Once the grief and horror over his death passed, the conversation returned to prosaic matters such as inquiries, commissions and justice. I call them prosaic because when journalists die in Pakistan, everyone pushes earnestly for answers, despite knowing that justice will never be done and no one will be held accountable. The same storyline was faithfully adhered to this time around. In the three years since, we have seen journalist organisations promising — politician-like — to push for investigations, as well as politicians and also other powerful people. Some promises were made publicly and some in secret but none were fulfilled. Three years on, very few questions have been answered.

But such tragedies are the norm in Pakistan. Here popular leaders are given the death penalty, others are targeted by militant groups and those from the smaller provinces are even disappeared. It is no wonder then that journalists are not treated more kindly. Just in the past couple of decades, Hayatullah was disappeared and killed in what was then Fata; Saleem Shahzad was disappeared and

© Dawn