ILF - On Sabeen's Assassination

This was the Live Program that took place in Islamabad

the day after Sabeen was killed.

You can see it by clicking her name above.

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With due apologies I'd like to ensure two things must be changed

since they were mentioned in the program.

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Ameena Saiyid is an old friend.

Her elder brother and I were classmates in School.

Her husband and I were classmates in College.

She mentions me, along with Sabeen,

as the people who contacted her for T2F.

While 'The Second Floor' was the actual 2nd Floor of my office,

the concept of T2F was entirely Sabeen's.

I did go to Ameena with Sabeen - but I was not the

person who thought of this amazing place.

It was all Sabeen's idea.

Its just that Sabeen had been working with me for years

that many friends thought I had now conceived this, too.

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The second issue is a more important one:

Asif Farrukhi mentioned that he had met Sabeen 10 days ago

and she had told him that she had received a letter with a bullet in it.

Framji Minwalla repeated that, too.

Sadly, this never happened!!!

I asked Asif the same night after confirming from

Ameena and the writer at Dawn who wrote about it.

(The newspaper also had a Photoshopped picture

that a few people thought was real!)

Asif couldn't recall this, at all.

Later he came to my house and said he was very confused.

There was a friend of his who told hm about another friend

and he mixed it up and added Sabeen's name that day.

Grief plays strange tricks and memories muddle.

Sadly, with story being in Dawn, it carried a lot of weight

and 'The New York Times' and others also published it.

I was asked by an 'investigator' to give him

the bullet and the letter.

I suggested that they contact 'Dawn'.

We, at T2F, who worked very hard with Sabeen,

in every way, knew that this was wrong.

I was her 'mentor', too.

If it had happened, Sabeen would have brought the bullet

and the paper and asked us to put a flower in it

and have it in the centre of our office table!

That would have been the Sabeen we knew.