Abdul Waheed — a fallen activist remembered

“You people are involved in immoral and un-Islamic activities. Stop them or be ready to face the consequences!” read a letter sent by the Taliban in 2012 to threaten social activists and educators Abdul Waheed and Syed Latif for running a co-educational school and a polio centre in Islamia Colony, near Kati Pahari – city’s most notorious and lawless area.

Both were associated with the Bright Educational Society (BES), a non-governmental organisation running the mixed-gender school, Naunehal Academy, and a polio eradication centre partly funded by Rotary International.

Located in an impoverished locality, the school offered quality education, a medical centre offering facilities free of charge to residents of the colony.

A few days after the letter was issued, Latif was rushed to a hospital after he received severe injuries in an attack on the school in August 2012; the attack was claimed by the Taliban. However, having survived the attack, the severity of his injuries and the unceasing threats compelled him to move to his hometown in Torghar district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

With Latif gone, it all came down to Waheed and continuing to defy the threats, he alone took charge of the school and the polio centre. However, just under a year later, he would pay for this defiance with his life. 

The Taliban struck the school again on May 13, 2013, and in it managed to kill Waheed, and injure his daughter and a younger brother. Lobbing grenades and firing in the air to disperse the crowd that gathered following the attack, the militants managed to escape.

When the school administration attempted tried to reopen the school on the fourth day of Waheed’ assassination, the militants lobbed another grenade inside the school in the evening.

Law enforcement officials believe that attacks on Waheed and Latif were carried out because the Taliban co-education and polio vaccination went against their ‘values’.

“It was Sher Khan, a Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s operational commander for Karachi, who had sent his men to attack them,” said a police officer familiar with the case. He was killed in August 2013 in infighting between TTP factions in Manghopir, he told The News.

Waheed was 37 when he was killed four years earlier; he left behind a wife and three young children.

Two decades of service

Waheed and Latif’s social work began in 1994 with volunteering with the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP), a local NGO focused on improving lives of Orangi Town residents on a self-help basis.

The two were inspired by social workers and researchers Akhtar Hameed Khan, Arif Hasan and Perween Rahman – the three leading figures of the OPP. Parween, director of the OPP was also killed in March 2013 near her office in Qasba Colony.

Urban planner and architect Hasan, who worked closely with Waheed and Latif remembers how the two 16-year-olds started volunteering with the organisation. “Brimming with enthusiasm and commitment to serve the community, they got involved in mapping the Orangi Town,” Hasan said.

In 1994, they formed the BES and set up Naunehal Academy in a makeshift building. In 1997, they got an amenity plot allotted by then Sindh Katchi Abadi Authority Director General Tasneem Siddiqui. In 2004, they had a proper building built for the school from funds collecting through donations.

Latif, who now runs BES’ activities in Manshera and other parts of the country, said that an OPP survey conducted by Akhtar Hameed Khan and his team showed the population of Islamia Colony to be over 80,000. All of them had been living without basic amenities, such as education and health.

These conditions, Latif said, spurred them to work for the community’s uplift.

“Besides running a school, the BES was involved in working in around 250 seminaries, a polio vaccination centre and other charity work until Waheed’s death,” Latif said.

Continuing the mission

However, having shifted to Mansehra, Latif is determined to continue Waheed’s mission to make education accessible to Islamia Colony’s residents as well as its adjacent neighbourhoods.

“Besides facing a financial crisis, threats from the TTP have also hampered the organisation’s activities,” Latif told The News. He said the school’s enrolment was stood at a mere 45 students when they started the school, it had reached 800 in 2013. “But is now around 250.” However, he says that a strategy to resume BES’ activities in the area has been devised, now that the Taliban’s grip has weakened owing to the Rangers-led crackdown in the city. He adds that a French organization has shown interest in supporting the NGO’s work.