Six years have passed, but Shamim Akhtar’s hopes in a politician’s promise have not dwindled. On the day Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, Akhtar was languishing on a footpath in front of the Rawalpindi hospital where the slain premier’s body was to undergo a postmortem. Nawaz Sharif, who encountered her upon his visit to the hospital, caught sight of her, and promised her shelter.
But in 2013, Akhtar and youngest daughter, Fehmida, still often sleep under the open skies. Both have her eyes set on better days ahead once Nawaz Sharif visits Rawalpindi as the prime minister of Pakistan.
“Every three months we have to change our home,” says Akhtar. “I requested Nawaz Sharif for shelter and I hope he will keep his promise.”
In 2006, Akhtar migrated to Rawalpindi from Karachi with her nine daughters and two sons. She, the wife of a well-off businessman, sold hand-made necklaces on the city’s footpaths after her husband was abducted by members of an unknown gang in Karachi.
She and her children staged a five-month sit-in at the Lahore Railway station in 2006 to press for the recovery of the family’s only breadwinner. But nothing came out of their pleas.
Akhtar’s troubles seem to have no end. Her elder son Irfan is held in a Lahore jail because of a domestic dispute with his in-laws, while the younger son, Rashid, is suffering from a deadly disease. Akhtar’s eight daughters stay in a rented house, but they don’t know for how long.
Unable to pay the rent, the family is forced to move out every three months or so.
Akhtar hopes that after Irfan’s release, she and her daughters will be able to afford a house on rent on a steady basis.
“Help by philanthropists is not a permanent solution to our problems,” she says.
After losing her husband, Akhtar tried hard to feed her large family. She set up a fish stall in Rawalpindi but could not afford to run it for long. She resorted to selling handmade necklaces, a business that is now the family’s only source of income.
But despite the hard luck, Fehmida, Akhtar’s youngest daughter has done well in her school exams, informed the proud mother.
Now she waits for Prime Minister-elect Nawaz Sharif to return to Rawalpindi and fulfill a promise made years ago.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 19th, 2013.