For Sana Arif, the journey to the Asian Games began with a sport she had only learnt a few years earlier.

One of Pakistan’s pioneering women triathletes, Sana learnt to swim only in 2021, and went on to complete three Ironman 70.3 races — a gruelling endurance event combining a 1.9km swim, 90.1km of cycling and a 21.1km run. Born in Kuwait and raised in Lahore before returning to Kuwait, she had built her triathlon career largely through her own determination and training.

In 2026, that journey took her to Japan, where she and fellow Pakistani triathlete Anisha Ali from Hunza became part of the country’s first women’s triathlon contingent at the Asian Games. They were joined by male teammates Ali Hassan, Mohid Sadiq Lone and Muhammad Mustaghis Noor.

Sana’s teammate Anisha, 26, brought a very different sporting background to the team. A national-level athlete in judo, martial arts, rowing, boating, tug-of-war and fencing, she was no stranger to competition or rigorous training. But triathlon presented a new challenge, requiring her to master three disciplines simultaneously. Hailing from Gilgit-Baltistan, she says her upbringing around mountains taught her to embrace challenges rather than shy away from them. This was a mindset she carried with her to the Asian Games.

For Pakistan’s first women triathletes at the Asian Games, the competition was about more than medals. It was about simply showing up…

For Sana, the call that changed everything came almost by chance. She was in Pakistan on holiday when a friend told her that trials were being held for the Asian Games triathlon team. The timing was fortunate. She went along with a handful of other athletes, some stronger cyclists, others accomplished runners. But Sana had one advantage that mattered in a sport demanding proficiency in all three disciplines: she could swim well too.

A week later, she received a call from the Pakistan Triathlon Federation. She had been selected to represent Pakistan at the Asian Games.

The selection marked a first. Pakistan was sending women triathletes to compete at the continental Games, and Sana and Anisha would be part of a small pioneering team, entering a competition in which the country had never before had female representation.

Following her selection, Sana trained largely on her own. The federation president remained in regular contact, checking on her progress and advising her on areas that needed attention. But, beyond that, there was no extensive national high-performance training programme in place.

For a sport that combines swimming, cycling and running — each requiring its own technical skills, coaching and equipment — much of the responsibility remained with the athlete.

Even meeting her teammates was a relatively new experience. Sana had crossed paths with two of them during the trials, but they had been too occupied with the selection process to get to know each other properly. Their team chemistry would develop only after they arrived in Japan.

When they did, something unexpected happened. The team became a source of strength for one another.

“We all knew who we were competing against,” Sana says. “Everyone was friendly, shared their experiences and supported wherever it was needed.” There was also an awareness that they were entering the competition at a disadvantage. “Though we were the weaker team compared to others, none of us even for a second thought of giving up. We fought till the end.”

That spirit extended beyond Pakistan’s team. Sana recalls meeting athletes from other countries, including competitors who were among the best in their respective nations and had professional-level experience. Rather than making her feel inadequate, they did the opposite.

When she explained that the sprint format was very different from the long-distance races she was accustomed to, they reassured her. “They were there to calm me down and tell me that it was all okay,” she says.

Some even pointed out what Sana herself had begun to realise: simply being there had significance. She was representing a country that had never before sent women triathletes to the Asian Games. That, in itself, was an achievement.

The experience in Japan also challenged some of the complaints circulating about conditions for athletes at the Games. For the triathletes, the arrangements were, Sana says, excellent. The team was based in Gamagori, a city designated specifically for the triathlon. Their accommodation was close to the race venue and the beach, with an island visible from their location and a running track in the surrounding garden.

Food was another pleasant surprise. There was a dedicated table for Muslim athletes, as well as vegan options — details Sana appreciated as an athlete travelling from Pakistan. “The staff and people were great, and there was a lot of security too,” she recalls.

The competition itself, however, brought the inevitable nerves. “It was great, but there was also a lot of anxiety, stress and excitement — mixed emotions,” she says.

There were no medals for Pakistan. But for Sana, the value of the experience cannot be measured by a podium finish. If anything, the race revealed the gap between Pakistan’s ambitions and the support required to turn those ambitions into sustained international competitiveness.

Her diagnosis is blunt: Pakistan needs to treat the triathlon as a long-term high-performance sport rather than something athletes prepare for only when a major Games approaches. “If Pakistan wants competitive Asian Games athletes, they shouldn’t start receiving support six months before the event,” she says.

The problems begin with the basics. Athletes need proper equipment, financial support and structured training. Sana points out that Pakistani competitors arrived on rented bicycles, while the tri-suits provided to them were also not suitable for the demands of the sport. They were not even made from the appropriate fabric required for the triathlon.

It is difficult, she argues, to expect international-level performances without first investing in the athletes expected to deliver them. Her point goes beyond the triathlon.

Her teammate Anisha believes more Pakistani women are doing sports, but says many talented girls — particularly those from rural, remote and mountainous areas — still lack the facilities, coaching, financial support and safe spaces they need. Representation matters too, she says: seeing Pakistani women compete internationally can help young girls believe that sport is a possibility for them as well.

Pakistan has repeatedly produced athletes who reach international competitions through individual determination, personal sacrifice and, often, their own financial resources. But competing at the highest level requires more than determination. It requires a system.

For Sana, the Asian Games were therefore both an accomplishment and a starting point. The experience showed her what elite triathlon looks like and, perhaps more importantly, what Pakistan needs to build if it wants to compete seriously in the future.

The response at home has largely been encouraging. There has been criticism too, as there inevitably is whenever Pakistani athletes compete without winning medals. Sana, however, has little interest in allowing that noise to define the experience. “People will always have something to say whether you win or lose,” she says. “No one understands your struggle, and that is okay.”

What she does remember is the overwhelming support. “The amount of positivity I have received from everywhere is unexplainable.”

For a first appearance, perhaps that is the more important result. Sana, Anisha and their teammates did not return from Japan with medals. They returned with something less tangible but potentially more consequential: proof that Pakistani women can enter a demanding sport like triathlon, compete on an international stage and hold their own against athletes from countries with far more developed systems.

The next step is no longer simply getting them to the starting line. It is giving the next generation the training, equipment, coaching and financial support to arrive there ready to compete. The first women have now gone. The question is whether Pakistan will build a path for those who come next.

The writer is a journalist, documentary filmmaker and radio correspondent. Instagram: @madeeha.syed

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 18th, 2026

ISLAMABAD: The accused involved in allegedly defrauding International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) student Laiba in the name of a US visa was killed in firing by his own accomplices, police said on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the Islamabad police confirmed the killing of the accused.

According to him, the under-custody accused was killed during firing on a police team in the jurisdiction of Ramna police station.

The spokesperson said a police team was taking the accused for recovery on his disclosure and pointation when four accomplices on two motorcycles allegedly opened indiscriminate fire on the police party in an attempt to get him freed.

The under-custody accused was injured in firing of his accomplices, while the police team remained safe due to bulletproof jackets and protective measures, the spokesperson said.

The injured accused was shifted to a hospital for medical assistance where he succumbed to his injuries, he added.

The spokesperson said the accused was nominated in the case of Laiba Ijaz, the student who committed suicide in Ramna police jurisdiction, and search operations were underway for arrest of his other accomplices.

He said a brother and cousins of the accused were already in jail, while cases of Rs8.5 million fraud were registered against them with the City Police Station, Mansehra. The deceased was a proclaimed offender in the said case.

On the other hand, police were unable to give any details about recovery of the money looted in the fraud from the slain accused.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2026

PERHAPS the most unfortunate aspect of the latest French popular uprising is that it may well facilitate Marine Le Pen’s journey to the Élysée Palace. The far-right contender for the presidency poses as the law-and-order saviour for a France that no longer exists, focusing — like the Trump regime — on immigration as the source of every societal woe.

The unrest that erupted in September with students from a couple of public high schools complaining about shrinking resources and inadequate facilities ballooned into a much broader rebellion. By last weekend, the protests had extended beyond disenchanted pupils and their parents and teachers to a far wider cross-section of society complaining about the cost of living — alongside the usual panoply of vandals, looters, and arsonists. The latter were on the fringes of largely peaceful demonstrations but inevitably grabbed the headlines, featuring images of shattered shopfronts and the historic Limoges town hall in flames.

To be fair, though, almost every report I came across acknowledged the carnivalesque aspect of the huge marches, distinguishing it from the criminality of opportunist gangs. Even President Emmanuel Macron made that distinction in his unimpressive address to the nation on Sunday, but offered little more than retribution for the offenders and a dialogue with ‘stakeholders’. Earlier, in response to the students’ demands, the government promised 3,000 more substitute teachers, but that’s not likely to alleviate concerns.

With France’s national debt at 119pc of its GDP, the usual excuse is that the state cannot afford to throw money at education (or health), let alone consider social spending that might ease wider cost-of-living woes. Yet economists have worked out that a relatively small increase in inheritance tax for the wealthiest one per cent of heirs would suffice for a substantial investment in education, while Thomas Piketty notes that the growth in private wealth means “France has never been richer”, notwithstanding its public debt.

Echoes of 1968 have been discerned in the events in France.

That’s a familiar story. In Europe alone, economic woes have prompted mass protests from the Iberian Peninsula to Albania. The rough end of the European housing crisis featured prominently in Spain, where citizens revolted once more after 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal was forcibly evicted from her home of 70 years because she could not afford the 230pc rent increase. She died a fortnight later, prompting more outrage.

A snap election has been called for Nov 29 after the right-wing opposition thwarted two decrees from the Pedro Sánchez government aimed at redressing tenants’ woes. Similar concerns have brought Portuguese citizens to the streets, and broader affordability worries have led to protests in Belgium and Italy.

In Albania, meanwhile, the ‘flamingo’ protests that grew from environmental concerns over an island that Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law sought to colonise have expanded to include less esoteric concerns, spreading from the capital Tirana to various other cities and demanding the departure of the prime minister and opposition leader.

La France Insoumise, the only viable left-wing force in French politics, has backed the agitators and condemned the violence, but should LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon make it into the second round of the next presidential election, there’s little doubt that the extreme centre epitomised by Macron will opt for Le Pen, effectively authorising a second Vichy regime. Similar patterns are likely to be witnessed in the rest of the continent.

Happily, the prospects in India differ. There is no scope for complacency, but the Cockroach Janta Party and its allies have clearly rattled the Modi regime. Its demise may not be imminent, but it’s no longer inconceivable. Every country deserves a Neha Bora. Several commentators in Pakistan have lamented the lack of parallels.

Sorrow and angst were expressed after 34 pupils and a teacher were killed last week in a roof collapse at a private Peshawar school. In many other countries, such a tragedy would have prompted demands for a nationwide reckoning, not least because of the criminally low state spending on education. But Pakistan, it seems, has better things to do.

Echoes of 1968 have been discerned in the events in France. Back then, university students, eventually backed by the unionised working class, briefly chased away Charles de Gaulle. He returned in apparent triumph but was gone within a year.

Meanwhile, our first field marshal, hailed by his Western sponsors as Pakistan’s de Gaulle, departed for good after a student-led popular rebellion in 1968-69. It isn’t necessary to condone what followed to hail the demise of the Ayub regime as a tremendous achievement. But perhaps it’s also a reminder to be careful what you wish for, given what followed in the next decade.

mahir.dawn@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2026

IN a democracy, parliament is not only supposed to legislate; it is also expected to safeguard the national interest and deliberate on key policy matters. That criterion does not seem to apply to our parliament. One seldom witnesses a major foreign or national security issue being deliberated by the ‘representatives’ of the people, and there is hardly any meaningful debate even on critical constitutional amendments and legislation. This ineffectiveness of the country’s highest legislative body reflects the sorry state of democracy against the backdrop of creeping authoritarianism.

Last week, both Houses of parliament approved, within hours and by a two-thirds majority, the decision to remove an elected provincial government and impose a state of emergency and governor’s rule, with no substantive debate. A highly controversial matter was disposed of within hours, with some ministers and leaders of the ruling coalition justifying the action against a provincial government that enjoyed the support of a majority of the members of the assembly, and the arrest of its chief minister and members of his government.

It was obvious that the decision had already been taken elsewhere, and that a parliament of debatable legitimacy was, as usual, expected to rubber-stamp it. Most members may not even have understood the constitutional provisions invoked to declare a state of emergency in a province, or whether those provisions applied to the conditions at hand. It looked like a puppet show. But it was not the first time this parliament blindly toed the line.

Over the past two years, it has passed the 26th and 27th Amendments, virtually destroying the essence of a Constitution that rests on the independence of the judiciary. That was perhaps the most shameful moment in our parliamentary history: ministers were shown the draft only hours before the session, and members were handed it on the floor of the House. Most had not read it when they voted for amendments of critical importance. They were passed overnight.

One can hardly recollect a foreign or national security policy being debated in parliament, nor even in its committees; one wonders whether such policies are discussed and approved by the cabinet at all. The main reason the government has given for its action in KP is that the provincial government was unwilling to cooperate in counterterrorism operations in the province worst hit by the resurgence of militant violence.

The ruling coalition is bound to pay a heavy political price for its undemocratic actions.

But a question that is never answered is whether the state has a well-defined, overarching counterterrorism policy in place, and, if it does, whether that policy has ever been discussed in cabinet, let alone presented before parliament or any of its committees for deliberation. The truth is that we have no clarity on how to deal with this existential threat.

Over the past quarter of a century I have covered and written extensively on Pakistan’s struggle with terrorism, and I can vouch that we have never had a holistic approach to an issue for which the state itself has been responsible. Even now, as militant attacks claim the lives of an increasing number of security personnel, the state is pursuing a one-dimensional policy that relies solely on kinetic operations in the affected areas, with little success. The confusion persists despite the claims of the ‘hard state’.

Balochistan, another strategically located province, has been bleeding for over 25 years with rising separatist militancy. As a result, the state has now lost control of large parts of the province, with an unrepresentative provincial government at the helm. Yet neither the cabinet nor parliament has any say in such a grave national security matter. While the ousted provincial government is being held responsible for the worsening situation in KP, who is responsible for the state of affairs in Balochistan? The reality is that the policy on Balochistan lies outside the domain of the present civilian set-up or the so-called representative parliament.

Unsurprisingly, a critical foreign policy question — Pakistan’s signing of the trilateral Makkah Joint Defence Agreement — has not been ratified, or more precisely rubber-stamped, by parliament. Turkiye, the other signatory to the pact, is still waiting for its parliament to endorse it. It is an extremely important external and internal policy issue, with long-term implications for a country already facing multiple challenges. There is also the question of whether the pact will be activated with the escalation in the Houthis’ attacks on Saudi Arabia.

While a pliant parliament has been conveniently used to rubber-stamp controversial constitutional amendments and laws that curb judicial independence and freedom of expression, there has also been much talk about resetting the country’s administrative structure. The all-powerful and ubiquitous interior minister has publicly declared that the system has collapsed and called for a complete revamp. But what does this projected resetting mean for the present hybrid power structure and for parliament?

There are strong views that emergency rule in KP could be the first step towards extending it to the entire country. Will a parliament that has endorsed emergency rule in KP also rubber-stamp any such action, even though it would further curtail its own powers? One objective of emergency rule is to clear the ground for the resetting of administrative units, an extremely volatile issue for some of the coalition parties, particularly the PPP. The Sindh Assembly has already voted against administrative changes. Still, with the legitimacy question hanging over its head, it would be extremely hard for parliament to resist a measure that would further consolidate authoritarian rule in the country.

The ruling coalition — which has feverishly supported emergency rule in KP, the controversial constitutional amendments that curb judicial independence, and the Peca laws being deployed to control the media — will pay a heavy political price for its undemocratic actions that are paving the way for the winding up of the entire system.

The shadow of authoritarianism looms over the country as a parliament with a dubious mandate has already surrendered whatever little power it had left. The collapse of a system built on a mandate seen as stolen seems imminent, with its patrons planning a new setup. It will be a further leap backward, taking an already unstable state down a dangerous path.

The writer is an author and journalist.

zhussain100@yahoo.com

X: @hidhussain

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2026

FOLLOWING the imposition of emergency and governor’s rule in KP on Oct 11, many lawmakers of the PTI remain untraceable. The matter has been raised in parliament and in the courts. During a hearing of related petitions in the Peshawar High Court yesterday, PTI chairman Gohar Ali Khan said that 12 MNAs and 14 MPAs belonging to the KP Assembly had been “picked up”.

Soon after the proclamation of emergency, Federal Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry had confirmed that KP’s non-functional Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and some members of his cabinet were in “preventive custody”. Meanwhile, on Monday, PTI lawmakers in the National Assembly demanded production orders for their fellow party MNAs. Opposition Leader Mahmood Achakzai endorsed the demand, while Raja Nasir Abbas, the opposition leader in the Senate, raised the issue in the Upper House.

One PTI MNA has been arrested at his madressah in Bannu, but the whereabouts of most of the missing lawmakers remain unknown, with their families also in the dark. Some lawmakers have reportedly been in detention since before Oct 11.

This is not the first time that opposition lawmakers in Pakistan have gone ‘missing’. The proclamation of emergency should not, however, mean holding fundamental rights in abeyance. Whether it is members of the assemblies, or ordinary citizens, the Constitution — if that document still holds any value for the wielders of power — guarantees due process to every Pakistani.

Therefore, Mr Afridi, as well as other PTI lawmakers, must be produced before the courts forthwith. The state must announce publicly what they are accused of, so that they can defend themselves, and engage counsel of their choice. Mr Chaudhry had said that if there are cases against the PTI leaders they would be charged, and if no evidence is found against them they would be released.

The state must keep its promise, and also grant the lawmakers access to their families. Members of the ruling coalition — belonging to both the PML-N and PPP — were on the receiving end of the state’s excesses during their time in opposition. Perhaps they should remember their own experiences, and the commitments their leaders made to upholding the rule of law.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2026