By Dr. Rehiana B. Ali
My father went to the UK in the late 1950s where he worked. I, like my brother Farooq, was brought up in the UK and am a UK citizen. One doesn’t have much reason to interact with High Commissions and certainly not in my independent path as a Neurologist until a disaster strikes. And a disaster did strike my family on 16th March 2022 when we were told that my brother, Farooq Ali – a postgraduate of Imperial College London – was found dead at Ramada by Wyndham Hotel Islamabad.
Within two days of arriving in Pakistan, it became clear to us that there had been foul play rather than mere suspicion of it given my brother was only 44 years old and without any medical conditions. I was pressed by relatives and friends to “contact the British High Commission” because “they’ll help you”.
On 22nd March I did contact them as Islamabad Police (ICT police) were refusing to issue an FIR. The FCDO kindly sent me an indiscriminate list of “English speaking lawyers” and was quick to tell me they could made what I considered the most inappropriate remarks constantly telling me they “couldn’t interfere”.
I never asked the BHC to “interfere” – I asked them to make consular representations on my behalf – which was the only reason why the Embassy supposedly existed. I was told that they couldn’t do anything without an FIR (that ICT police wouldn’t give) and a copy of the death certificate. Later, I found examples of where they had assisted individuals in obtaining FIRs. I obtained the FIR after filing a petition before the Honourable Judge Humayun Dilawar.
Despite the FIR, the BHC’s efforts seemed paltry. I couldn’t get a meeting – until I stood outside Gate No 2 on 28th April 2022 for a few hours. The Deputy High Commissioner, Richard Crowder, conceded there were suspicious circumstances around my brother’s death. The BHC claimed they couldn’t arrange a meeting with the Inspector General (then Ahsan Younas) and instead I met the Deputy IG Awais Ahmed who promised cooperation.
Letters from the BHC were being sent to the wrong place and not being chased up. I’d lived in the UK all my life so I know how the British work. This level of “incompetence” was just not normal. After further delays, I began insisting upon escalation but the BHC wanted a meeting with the IG (now Akbar Nasir Khan) whom I had already met and who had reneged on his agreed actions.
The BHC insisted they couldn’t “politically” avoid this meeting. After that meeting on 4th July in which concrete promises were made (and reneged upon) the Deputy High Commissioner was only at pains to stress that my tweets were offending the ICT police. It seemed to me that the BHC were not very keen on freedom of speech in this case.
I told him I tweeted the truth and if the ICT police had carried out their duties, they wouldn’t have been criticised. On 19th of July, we met the British High Commissioner Dr Christian Turner who admitted “mistakes” had been made and “communication could be better” – the latter the least of my concerns. He promised that we could look at the next steps when the promised police report materialised.
It didn’t. I had calls from the BHC weekly for about a month but this appeared to be simply a meaningless exercise – no police report emerged. On one occasion I was asked to share my email address with ICT police – I suggested to BHC that perhaps they could forward the report which is what they had been doing for months since ICT police were refusing to communicate with me. The Head of Consular services snapped that the BHC “was not a mailbox” between me and the ICT police although previously they had been sending me communications.
I reluctantly shared the email address but what I received was an ICT notice accusing me of not giving over the laptop or phone of my brother to the police! No evidence of course and recall that I had been in the UK and ICT police had custody of the room and all of the room’s contents. Bizarrely, the BHC kept repeating the same line despite the obvious lie.
Incidentally, they seem quite content currently to serve as the “mailbox” to unrelated third parties who are trying to pervert the course of justice in Pakistan. In September last year, the Head of Consular services was quite frequently in urgent meetings about women’s protests elsewhere so imagine my surprise when I was warned that the BHC might not be able to help me if I was arrested in Islamabad. My crime? Peaceful protests outside the PM House and the Supreme Court. These Champions of women’s rights didn’t think I should protest. The calls from BHC ended – I guess I wasn’t grateful enough. Or perhaps the questions about the lack of help from the BHC and their relationship to the Ramada by Wyndham hotel weren’t welcome?
They told me they wouldn’t communicate with me anymore. I was given quite hostile treatment at the FCDO in London – although I was only legitimately following up that promise of a meeting with Dr Turner from July. The MPs in the UK (Richard Burgon and Naz Shah) became suspiciously quiet and are now openly refusing help (in violation of their duties) as is their “free” media.
Compare and contrast that to the numerous cases where the BHC has helped even British criminals. Think of the recent political and media uproar over the 10-year old girl Sara Sharif – the police in Jhelum said they were under “tremendous pressure” and they claimed – according to the Daily Mail – that “the British High Commission was threatening to send their own investigators”.
Was this the same BHC who told me they couldn’t “interfere” and that they were “powerless”? Innocent Sharif family members appear to have been arrested recently and now just one month later, the fugitives are back in the UK facing justice. However, in 18 months, no single hotel staff has been arrested since my brother’s murder in March 2022 and the BHC has not been concerned about the hotel’s lack of cooperation. Since pursuing this case, we have also faced a number of difficulties in the UK with state institutions.
In 2007, my brother wrote a poem (perhaps I will share that too at some point) but at the end of it, he quoted this apocryphal tale:
“An ancient grand chess master was once asked by a warrior: how do you fight an invisible enemy? The chess master replied: by taking something that your enemy can’t afford to give up. If you hang onto that thing your enemy will slowly reveal itself to you, through its increasingly desperate efforts to retrieve that something essential that you took. Once the enemy is visible to you, then and only then can you even begin the fight-back”
Over the last few months, I’ve begun to see the truth of that tale.
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The Author Dr. Rehiana B. Ali is sister of a UK-AJK national dead Farooq Ali who was allegedly murdered in a room of Ramada hotel Islamabad more than one and half years ago but accused behind the heinous crime are still at large.
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The views expressed in this Op-ed and following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of The Law Today Pakistan.
