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THE LAST OF THE MOHANNAS
On the banks of Manchhar Lake, near Jhangara, stands the dargah [shrine] of Ghaaib Pir, a saint whose name evokes disappearance, invisibility and passage into the unseen. In Sindhi and South Asian Sufi traditions, ghaaib does not simply mean absence, it refers to that which has slipped beyond human perception, into a realm that exists but is no longer accessible.
Saints associated with the ghaaib phenomenon are believed not to have died in the conventional sense, but to have withdrawn quietly and mysteriously from the material world. Manchhar Lake itself is now in the process of becoming ghaaib and, consequently, so are the Mohanna people who live on it.
Once Pakistan’s largest freshwater lake and a shimmering expanse of sustenance and song, Manchhar Lake’s waters expanded and contracted with the seasons, swelling to over 250 square kilometres during the monsoon and retreating in the drier months. Fed by hill torrents from the Kirthar range and freshwater flows from the Indus, the lake functioned as a natural reservoir that sustained fish, birds, reeds and people. But now, its waters are increasingly saline and toxic, no longer signifying abundance.
“This lake raised us,” says Mai Jindan, a Mohanna woman seated on the edge of her houseboat. “Our mothers washed babies in its water. Our fathers cast their nets at dawn. Now we tell our children not to touch it.”
Once a pristine freshwater lake, home to the thriving Mohanna fishing community and their houseboats, Manchhar Lake is now polluted and toxic due to decades of state neglect. As the lake grows increasingly inhospitable, the dwindling Mohanna culture of the lake creeps closer and closer towards extinction. While efforts, such as those by NED’s Heritage Cell, are underway to preserve the Mohanna way of life, can the lake that sustains it still be saved?
For generations, the Mohannas lived not beside Manchhar but within it. Their houseboats, known as galiyo, approximately 38 feet long and 10 feet wide, formed floating villages that drifted with the seasons, clustering and dispersing according to water levels, fish movements and the wind. Children learned to swim before they learned to walk properly, because water was their first language. For these indigenous fisherfolk, the boats were homes, workplaces and social spaces.
The Mohanna life has long been centred around three seasons: sawan (monsoon: July-September), machhi maran (fishing season: October-March) and sukkal (dry season: April-June). Oral historians among the Mohannas, often referred to as the “Bird People”, recall ancestral fishing grounds by name, particular bends in the lake where certain fish would gather, or seasons when birds arrived so densely that the sky itself appeared to darken.
Manchhar was a cultural landscape, shaped through intimate knowledge and reciprocal care. Over 200 species of freshwater fish were recorded here in the mid-20th century. Tens of thousands of migratory birds — pelicans, ducks, cormorants and egrets— arrived each winter. Reeds grew thick along the edges, providing material for mats, shelters and boats. Fishing techniques were refined over generations, sometimes involving trained birds. Time itself was organised not by calendars but by water levels, fish migrations and monsoon winds.
The lake taught the Mohannas where to move, when to wait and when to leave. In this way, Manchhar functioned as both classroom and archive, holding generations of ecological intelligence that never entered official records. “The lake was our market, our school, our mosque,” recalls Ghulam Mustafa Mirbahar, a Mohanna elder. “Everything we needed came from it.”
But now, due to Manchhar Lake’s reduced freshwater inflows and increased toxicity, the Mohannas are under threat — much like the lake itself. In an article titled ‘How a Polluted Lake is Endangering Life in and Around It’ published in Dawn’s Herald magazine in September 2018, Namrah Zafar Moti quotes a Mohanna fisherman who recalled that, around 14 years earlier (circa 2004), there were nearly 2,000 houseboats on the lake. The Mohannas, whose lives were inseparable from the water, are now disappearing from it, pushed ashore by necessity rather than choice.
At present, around 375 people, comprising 65 families, continue to live on Manchhar Lake. The number of galiyos has now dwindled to just 44. Migratory birds also still arrive, but in fewer numbers. “When ecosystems collapse,” one Mohanna elder observes, “even flight changes.” This is a slow disappearance that has been unfolding over decades. And, like Ghaaib Pir’s disappearance, it is happening in plain sight.
MANCHHAR LAKE’S HISTORY OF NEGLECT
Located about 18 kilometres west of Sehwan Sharif in Sindh, Manchhar Lake spreads to the foot of the Kirthar mountain range. Historically, Manchhar’s health depended on regular freshwater inflows from the Indus River and hill torrents. This natural flushing kept salinity low and ecosystems resilient. But over the last two centuries, a series of interventions began to sever these lifelines.
Following the introduction and expansion of the railway system during British rule in the Subcontinent, there was a reduced reliance on river navigation, diminishing the traditional role of the Mohannas as riverine transporters.
Later on, the building of the Sukkur Barrage in 1923 and the Kotri Barrage in 1955 across the Indus obstructed natural river routes, making navigation difficult and disrupting traditional water-based livelihoods. While these projects expanded agriculture elsewhere through their tightly controlled irrigation channels, they reduced the freshwater reaching Manchhar, altering its chemistry and seasonal rhythms.
Yet, the most devastating blow came with the introduction of large-scale drainage schemes intended to carry saline and wastewater away from agricultural lands and urban centres. The Right Bank Outfall Drain (RBOD), started in 1980, was designed to divert polluted water safely to the sea. Instead, due to chronic delays, incomplete infrastructure and poor regulation, it began disgorging untreated industrial effluent, municipal sewage, pesticides and fertilisers directly into Manchhar Lake.
As freshwater inflows declined and toxic discharges increased, Manchhar’s natural flushing mechanisms failed. Salinity increased, fish died, bird populations collapsed or altered their migratory routes altogether and water once drinkable became hazardous to touch.
“The water was sweet before,” says the Mohanna Allah Dino Mallah. “You could drink it straight from your hands. But today, even the fish cannot survive in the water.”
Sedimentation carried by the drains further reduced the lake’s depth and storage capacity, concentrating pollutants and shrinking habitats. What had once been a vast, dynamic ecosystem became a stagnant basin of contamination. Peeran Mallah, a Mohanna fisherman, says, “We know when the lake is sick. The smell tells us before the tests do.”
The damage unfolded incrementally, making it easy to normalise, difficult to reverse and almost impossible to attribute to any single authority. Each intervention framed itself as development while, collectively, they dismantled the lake’s capacity to sustain life.
THE MOHANNAS UNDER THREAT
For the Mohannas, the consequences were immediate and brutal. Fishing yields fell from thousands of tonnes annually to a fraction of that. Health problems multiplied: skin diseases, respiratory illnesses and waterborne infections became common. With no access to clean water, sanitation, healthcare or consistent schooling, survival itself grew uncertain.
Fish, formerly both food and currency, became scarce, small and, often, unsafe to eat. The Mohanna woman Zarina Mallah notes, “When the fish died, everything else followed.” As a result, many families were forced to abandon their floating homes and move ashore, often into informal settlements, where they were neither recognised as landowners nor supported as displaced communities. Hence, cultural identity eroded alongside ecological collapse.
Women bore a disproportionate share of this rupture. With declining fish stocks and worsening water quality, domestic labour intensified. Water had to be sourced from farther away, illnesses cared for without medical access, children kept safe in increasingly hostile conditions. For the youngest Mohannas, born into a lake already poisoned, the idea of water as a sustainer rather than a threat is no longer intuitive.
Drying fish was once a seasonal rhythm tied to surplus. But now, “the dried fish goes to Karachi and Hyderabad to be turned into poultry feed,” explains Abdul Wahab. “The catch is mostly small fish. This is not what we used to eat.” The disappearance here is incremental — fish by fish, boat by boat, family by family.
Among the most fragile survivors of this collapse are the galiyo. Each galiyo is an archive of vernacular design, adaptive architecture and environmental intelligence. Built from local wood and reeds, these boats respond to changing water levels, winds and seasonal temperatures. Their interiors encode social organisation, gendered spaces and everyday rituals. To lose them is not merely to lose shelter but to lose an entire philosophy of dwelling on water.
In architectural terms, the galiyo represent a rare example of climate-responsive design, developed outside formal institutions. Their low freeboard and flexible joints allowed them to adapt to fluctuating water levels long before resilience entered professional vocabulary. To let them disappear would be to erase evidence that sustainable futures can emerge from vernacular knowledge rather than imported models.
This very knowledge and way of life is under threat.
“Government people come,” says the Mohanna fisherman Sain Bakhsh Mallah. “They take photos and write reports, but the water stays the same.” He says that children still listen to elders recount information and stories about routes, seasons and signs, but many already imagine their lives elsewhere.
But, without any formal training or education, what will the lives of the Mohanna youth look like elsewhere? When the Mohannas are displaced on to land, their skills become unreadable to policy, irrelevant to markets and invisible to planning frameworks. What makes this disappearance particularly devastating is that it has unfolded through decisions made elsewhere due to engineering choices, bureaucratic delays and institutional indifference.
So what can be done to safeguard the Mohanna community?
TRYING TO PRESERVE A WAY OF LIFE
The 2024 launch of the UK-Pakistan Cultural Protection Fund (CPF) pilot was an attempt at a holistic intervention that combined the restoration of Manchhar’s remaining houseboats with a deeper commitment to the survival of the community itself.
The project ‘Manchhar Lake Mohannas — Safeguarding the Last Surviving Houseboat Village from Extinction’, led by Professor Dr Anila Naeem and Farida Abdul Ghaffar, assistant professor at the Department of Architecture and Planning of Karachi’s NED University (DAPNED), sought to document, conserve and reimagine these floating structures as cultural heritage. Professor Naeem is the chairperson of DAPNED and a heritage conservation specialist.
During the first phase of the project, undertaken on an exacting 10-month timeline (April 2024-January 2025), NED’s Heritage Cell team helped repair 44 severely deteriorated houseboats. After undertaking a detailed assessment of the houseboats, a plan for repairs was made. Locals were engaged in boat-building techniques, repairs and maintenance, as the project placed architectural research in dialogue with community knowledge, conservation ethics and environmental advocacy. It was also important to facilitate the community with drinking water and toilet facilities. Skill development and tourism initiatives were piloted to create sustainable income opportunities.
Many of these houseboats were close to collapse, with rotting bases and compromised structures that made daily life unsafe. Repairs extended their lifespan by decades, allowing families to remain on water rather than being forced ashore. “If the boats had gone,” one elder says, “we would have gone with them.”
A pilot restoration of Muhammad Ashraf’s houseboat, for example, involved sourcing local wood, carefully cutting it and transporting it to Manchhar Lake under gruelling weather conditions, with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees. A rotting base was also replaced, and the houseboat was relaunched with the collective effort of over 50 community members, after a month of painstaking labour and experimentation. This first success restored not only the structure but also community confidence and faith in the project’s promise.
Beyond housing, the intervention also addressed urgent health needs. A mobile water filtration unit provided access to safe drinking water in a place where the lake itself had become toxic. Eco-toilets improved sanitation in a community that had long lived without such infrastructure. Solar-powered systems reduced dependence on fuel and external supply lines.
Fishing, the economic backbone of Mohanna life, was also supported through the construction of new fishing boats [hurro], replacing those lost to decay. While fish stocks remain depleted, mobility restored some measure of agency, allowing families to continue working rather than abandoning the lake altogether.
Children, too, were drawn into the orbit of learning. A temporary learning centre was established, initially operated on newly repaired houseboats, and later shifting to a floating bamboo structure that doubled as a communal space. For families accustomed to displacement, the sight of education taking place on water carries symbolic weight.
The second phase of the project (April 2025-January 2026) involved a series of community interactive activities, including tours, workshops and a five-day art residency. It culminated in a performative-curatorial event, ‘Manchhar Lake Mohannas – Sailing Towards Revival’, which framed Manchhar not as a closed chapter but as an unfolding story, foregrounding dialogue and visual narratives from the Mohanna community’s lived realities.
Yet even as these changes took hold, their limits were clear.
No number of repaired boats or community programmes can neutralise untreated sewage. No water filter can compensate for a lake that no longer flushes itself clean. Tree saplings planted along the Manchhar Bund and a bamboo pavilion offer shade to visitors, but they cannot alter the lake’s chemistry. Heritage tourism pilots create momentary income and visibility, but they remain fragile, dependent on conditions beyond local control. Ultimately, these efforts were holding ground and buying time in a landscape where time has been running out.
CAN MANCHHAR BE BROUGHT BACK FROM THE BRINK?
The question that hangs over Manchhar now is no longer whether it has been damaged — that reality is visible, measurable and lived daily — but whether it can still be saved. Restoration, in Manchhar’s case, requires a return to first principles: water that moves, water that cleans itself and governance that treats ecological systems as living entities rather than as disposal sites.
At the heart of Manchhar’s decline lies the severing of freshwater inflows. For centuries, the lake remained viable because it was periodically flushed by clean water from the Indus and hill torrents. This dilution kept salinity in check and allowed pollutants to disperse. Once that flow was throttled, first by barrages, then by diversions, Manchhar became a terminal basin, receiving waste but unable to release it. Stopping the poisoning, therefore, begins upstream.
Untreated industrial effluent and municipal sewage entering the lake through the RBOD and the Main Nara Valley Drain must be intercepted and treated before reaching Manchhar. This is not a technological mystery, as wastewater treatment systems exist and have existed for decades. What has been missing is enforcement, maintenance and political will. Without functional treatment plants and strict regulation of industrial discharge, every other intervention remains cosmetic.
Freshwater inflows must also be restored. Environmental flow, water released specifically to sustain ecosystems, is a measurable requirement. Without it, salinity will continue to rise, fish will fail to reproduce and birds will not return in meaningful numbers. Restoring this flow will require coordination between provincial and federal authorities, irrigation departments and environmental agencies — a level of cooperation that has historically been elusive.
Sedimentation presents another challenge. Decades of accumulated silt have reduced Manchhar’s depth and storage capacity, intensifying pollution and shrinking habitats. Dredging, combined with the creation of wetlands and sediment traps upstream, could help restore the lake’s ability to hold and cleanse water. Nature-based solutions, such as planting aquatic vegetation that absorb pollutants, offer additional pathways, but only if water quality improves enough to support life.
It was hence a welcome sight that, in 2025, the Sindh government partnered with WWF-Pakistan for an $8 million Manchar Lake revival initiative, aimed at combatting rising salinity and pollution in the lake, restoring its ecological balance, reducing environmental threats and uplifting the livelihoods of local communities impacted by the lake’s decline. However, whether or not this endeavour succeeds remains to be seen. Earlier efforts, such as the Supreme Court’s directive in 2017, calling on provincial authorities to ensure regular monitoring and revival of water filtration plants, disposal of solid waste and efforts to control the pollution level in Manchhar Lake, fell on deaf ears.
Of course, no meaningful change can be brought without the participation of the people who know the lake best. Community-led monitoring, where Mohanna observations are treated as important data rather than anecdotes, could transform how the lake is managed. Their knowledge of seasonal changes, fish behaviour and water conditions represents an archive of environmental intelligence that no satellite image can replace.
SAILING INTO AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
Manchhar’s crisis is not an isolated failure. Across Sindh, other water bodies are showing the same early symptoms of reduced inflows, untreated waste, creeping salinity and ecological thinning.
Haleji Lake and Keenjhar Lake, both critical sources of drinking water and once-thriving ecosystems, face mounting pressure from pollution and over-extraction. They are displaying warning signs that are similar to what Manchhar Lake has experienced. If lessons are not learned here, they will be repeated — lake by lake, creek by creek — until disappearance becomes the default outcome of water governance.
By extension, Mohanna culture can only be preserved if stringent measures are taken to rehabilitate Manchhar Lake. The reality is that one of Pakistan’s most vibrant indigenous communities has long had a sword dangling over both their means of livelihood and way of life.
If targeted efforts are not made to safeguard the Mohanna community and the well-being of Manchhar Lake, both the lake and the community that resides on it will become another permanent victim of Pakistan’s wounded ecology.
The question, then, is not whether Manchhar will become ghaaib. The question is whether disappearance will once again be explained as inevitability rather than consequence.
Rumana Husain is a writer, artist and educator. She is the author of two coffee-table books on Karachi, and has authored and illustrated 90 children’s books
Published in Dawn, EOS, February 15th, 2026
Camouflage and mimicry are among the oldest concepts in biology — taught in classrooms as elegant outcomes of natural selection. Animals that blend in avoid getting eaten. Over many generations, tiny random changes accumulate. Simple, neat, intuitive.
But the deeper scientists look, the more the real world looks less like a simple narrative and more like a puzzle with missing pieces.
Across the animal and plant kingdoms, there are creatures whose mimicry is so precise — down to texture, colour gradients, behavioural nuance and even spectral reflections invisible to the human eye — that the standard explanation strains at the seams. What mechanisms allow an insect or a plant with no brain, no eyes and no cognitive awareness of its surroundings to develop such astonishing resemblance?
Take, for example, walking stick and leaf insects. Some species do more than mimic the general outline of foliage; they reproduce irregular edges, asymmetries and colour variations indistinguishable from real leaves — even under close inspection. Predators that rely on pattern recognition walk right past them. The perception of texture and shading that these insects embody is typically associated with sensory and neural processing — yet they lack anything resembling a central nervous system capable of that.
From mantises matching UV patterns they cannot see to vines copying plastic leaves, nature’s most precise disguises challenge simple evolutionary explanations
Or consider moss-mimicking stick insects filmed in South American rainforests. These insects display not just green surfaces but irregular lichen-like roughness and mottling. Their bodies look like small patches of moss clinging to branches. The patterns of light and dark, the uneven ridges and indentations, and the behavioural postures enhance the illusion. All produced without eyes capable of seeing the moss they so closely resemble.
Then there are the orchid mantises, a case that explicitly challenges assumptions about sensory requirements for mimicry. These insects mimic flowers not only in shape and colour but in ultraviolet reflectance — a visual band invisible to humans. Many of the insects they deceive (bees, flies) see this ultraviolet spectrum. But the mantises themselves cannot see ultraviolet patterns. Despite this, their bodies evolve ultraviolet reflectance that matches real flowers so closely that pollinators land on them routinely, mistaking insect for nectar source.
A plant example intensifies the puzzle. In South America, the vine Boquila trifoliolata can grow leaves that mimic the shape, size, colour and venation of nearby host leaves — even when those hosts are artificial plastic cutouts. This suggests that the vine responds to local cues in its immediate environment with astonishing specificity. Whether the cues are chemical, light-based or something else entirely, the mechanism remains unclear. What doesn’t appear to be required is any form of vision or cognition — yet the results are near-perfect mimicry.
Finally, some caterpillars display mimicry so dynamic that it becomes behavioural rather than purely morphological. Certain tropical caterpillars, when threatened, inflate their bodies and rear up in a way that makes them appear strikingly like a small snake. The patterning, the posture, the timing of the display all combine to trigger hesitation in predators that hunt visually. This behaviour — which requires striking precision of posture and display — occurs in organisms with only rudimentary nervous systems.
What unites these examples is not just mimicry but extreme mimicry: cases where resemblance is fine-grained, context-sensitive and effective against the perceptual systems of other organisms. These are not simple cases of “same colour = hidden”; these are examples where texture, shape irregularity, spectral signatures and behavioural display all converge to create illusions that fool highly tuned biological sensors.
Standard evolutionary theory explains the existence of mimicry — that similar forms can be favoured by selection when they confer survival advantage. But in many of these cases, the path from “random change” to “highly specific resemblance” is not clearly documented. Intermediate stages would not function, or would function poorly. Many of these mimetic features appear as if they encode information about the environment that the organism itself cannot perceive.
The accumulating evidence prompts more questions than answers:
• How do organisms without visual systems produce mimicry tailored to visual systems they do not possess?
• What sensory or molecular mechanisms allow plants to adjust leaf morphology to match local neighbours — including artificial proxies?
• Are our explanations too focused on selection after the fact and not enough on how complex phenotypes originate in the first place?
These questions are not a repudiation of evolutionary biology — they are an invitation to expand it. The natural world continues to defy simple explanations, revealing depths of complexity that resist tidy summary.
By confronting these puzzles with honesty, scientists expand both theory and wonder.
The writer is a banker based in Lahore. X: @suhaibayaz
Published in Dawn, EOS, February 15th, 2026
It was never going to be easy for the International Cricket Council (ICC) to sideline Pakistan from the T20 World Cup, let alone exclude them from the marquee clash against India. That is precisely why, today on February 15, Pakistan will take on India for the ninth time in T20 World Cup history.
It is a rivalry in which Pakistan has managed only one victory so far. Yet win numbers barely matter when these two teams meet, because this contest has grown far beyond cricket and has become arguably the most anticipated fixture in global sport.
In the build-up to this match, uncertainty loomed large. Until just days before the game, there was no official confirmation that Pakistan would play. This followed a dramatic political intervention when the Government of Pakistan announced that it would not permit the Pakistan team to participate in the World Cup group-stage match against India. Despite the tournament featuring 20 teams, this single lucrative fixture dominated headlines across the cricketing world.
The tension had been sparked when Bangladesh approached the ICC, requesting that their World Cup matches be shifted out of India due to political and security concerns. The ICC rejected this request, citing operational challenges, and eventually removed Bangladesh from the tournament, replacing them with Scotland. This decision sent shockwaves through the cricket community and raised serious questions about fairness and consistency in governance.
The most anticipated match in the ongoing T20 World Cup, Pakistan versus India today, almost didn’t happen. But the issue was always about more than a single match. It was about respect, equity and the balance of power in international cricket
At that moment, Pakistan emerged as the only major cricketing nation willing to stand publicly in solidarity with Bangladesh. Pakistan’s position was rooted in recent precedent.
In the 2025 Champions Trophy, India refused to travel to Pakistan and the ICC allowed their matches to be played at a neutral venue in the UAE. Similarly, in the 2026 T20 World Cup, Pakistan was already playing all its matches in Sri Lanka rather than India. Given this background, many believed that Bangladesh deserved the same consideration rather than outright exclusion.
The Pakistan government took a firm stance and instructed the national team not to play India unless the issue was addressed. This moment marked a rare instance of a powerful cricket board openly challenging both the ICC and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
On Sky Sports, former England captain and respected commentator Nasser Hussain weighed in on the controversy. He remarked that it was difficult to imagine the ICC treating India the same way if they had refused to play in a host country at short notice. He further stated that Pakistan was speaking to the ICC and BCCI in the only language that truly moves world cricket, financial leverage and commercial reality.
Hussain also expressed admiration for both Bangladesh and Pakistan, praising Bangladesh for taking a principled stand and Pakistan for defending another full member of the ICC.
The situation reached a turning point on Sunday, February 8, when the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president and the ICC deputy chairman travelled to Pakistan for high-level talks with Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Mohsin Naqvi. These discussions proved crucial and, by Monday evening, a resolution began to take shape.
Following the meeting, the BCB formally requested Pakistan to proceed with the match against India on February 15. Shortly after, the ICC issued a detailed press release outlining key assurances, including recognition of Bangladesh as a valued full member with a proud cricketing heritage, confirmation that their absence from the 2026 World Cup would not harm their long-term cricketing future and a commitment to continue supporting cricket development in Bangladesh, a nation of over 200 million passionate fans.
Most importantly, the ICC confirmed that no financial, sporting or administrative penalties would be imposed on Bangladesh. The BCB also retained the right to approach the ICC Dispute Resolution Committee if it chose to do so. Additionally, Bangladesh was guaranteed hosting rights for an ICC event between 2028 and 2031, ahead of the 2031 Men’s Cricket World Cup, subject to standard procedures.
Following this resolution, the Government of Pakistan officially announced on social media platform X that Pakistan would indeed play India today. This marked a historic moment in cricket diplomacy, where one board stood up for another in the name of fairness and equality among ICC members.
Despite this positive outcome, a misleading narrative began circulating in the Indian media. Several outlets portrayed Pakistan as backing down or surrendering under pressure. This interpretation was far from the truth.
The reality is that India versus Pakistan matches in ICC tournaments generate immense global viewership and revenue. Broadcasters, sponsors, the ICC, BCCI and PCB all benefit significantly from this rivalry. Even during periods of intense public hostility, such as the 2025 Asia Cup, India ultimately played Pakistan despite political tensions at home. At that time, Indian players refused to shake hands as a symbolic gesture, yet they still participated because a full boycott was simply not commercially viable.
What made this situation different was that Pakistan became the first team to openly risk financial losses and potential ICC sanctions by threatening to withdraw from the biggest match in world cricket. This was not a retreat but a calculated stand based on principles.
At the same time, the ICC was never in a position to simply remove or punish Pakistan the way it did with Bangladesh, even though this was exactly what many in India, particularly sections of Indian media and officials close to the BCCI, were hoping for.
Kicking Pakistan out of a global event was never going to be straightforward, because Pakistan is one half of the biggest rivalry in world cricket, a rivalry that generates enormous revenue, viewership, sponsorship and broadcast value for every ICC tournament.
The India versus Pakistan contest is not just another match, it is one of the most commercially powerful fixtures in international sport and the entire financial model of ICC events benefits heavily from its existence. Broadcasters pay premium rights fees largely because of this match-up. Sponsors invest more when these two teams meet. And host countries rely on this game to maximise ticket sales and global engagement.
Because of this, the ICC had to handle Pakistan’s stance with far greater caution and diplomacy than it did with Bangladesh, as any harsh action against Pakistan would have directly damaged the tournament’s commercial appeal and credibility. Unlike Bangladesh, Pakistan sits at the centre of the most profitable rivalry in cricket.
In truth, all three parties, Pakistan, India and the ICC, ultimately wanted this match to go ahead. However, Pakistan ensured that the ICC and BCCI acknowledged the need for fair treatment of all member nations rather than selective enforcement based on power or politics.
In the end, this episode became a win-win situation. Bangladesh secured a future ICC hosting opportunity without any penalties, while Pakistan demonstrated leadership, solidarity and moral courage. More importantly, Pakistan proved that it is not merely a participant in world cricket but a nation willing to challenge the system when fairness is at stake.
This was not just about a single match. It was about respect, equity and the balance of power in international cricket. And on that front, Pakistan emerged with its reputation not only intact but strengthened.
The writer is a cricket correspondent and
digital content creator. X: @abubakartarar
Published in Dawn, EOS, February 15th, 2026
Ten-year-old Ashfaq lives in a bustling household of ten siblings in Sindh’s Ghotki district, some 540 kilometres north of Karachi. Two and a half years ago, when he was just eight, Ashfaq’s world had narrowed to the confines of a bed, his body ravaged by a mysterious, relentless illness.
A second-grade student at that time, Ashfaq arrived at the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) in Karachi in June 2023, cradled by his father and his 25-year-old sister. He was febrile and gasping for air, his skin ghost-white from severe anaemia. Most heartbreaking for the family was Ashfaq’s inability to walk; the very bones that should have carried him through childhood were now sources of agonising pain.
Ashfaq was brought to the paediatric oncology department, run by the medical charity Child Aid Association under the public-private partnership model. As the head of paediatric oncology, I examined Ashfaq and the grim reality became clear: he had been suffering in silence for 10 long weeks and the signs were pointing towards a childhood cancer illness.
Every year, 8,000 Pakistani children are diagnosed with cancer. Less than half receive proper treatment. While childhood cancer survival rates exceed 80 percent in wealthy nations, they plummet below 30 percent in Pakistan. On International Childhood Cancer Day, a doctor reveals how a historic pledge could lead to hope for families across the nation…
ONE CHILD AMONG THOUSANDS
Ashfaq’s story, though tragic, is not unique. It is the hauntingly familiar narrative of countless children who arrive at our centre, their young lives pushed to the brink by delayed diagnosis and systemic hardship.
Childhood cancer, a devastating health concern, affects approximately 400,000 children each year globally, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates issued in February 2025. While survival rates in high-income countries exceed 80 percent, they plummet to under 30 percent in low- and middle-income regions, the WHO notes.
According to non-profit Pakistan Society of Paediatric Oncology (PSPO), around 10,000 children are diagnosed with cancer annually in Pakistan. But less than half receive proper diagnosis and treatment, because of the limited number of paediatric oncology centres and cancer registries. Currently, there are eight paediatric oncology departments across Pakistan. Two cancer registries exist — one in Karachi and the other in Lahore — but both track adult and child patients together.
In October 2025, PSPO launched a national paediatric cancer registration programme, involving multiple hospitals across Pakistan. It aims to maintain accurate and comprehensive records, in order to improve diagnosis, treatment and survival rates for children battling cancer.
Among the most common types of childhood cancers, leukaemia leads with nearly 30 percent of cases. Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), a specific, aggressive type of blood cancer, has a high cure rate with contemporary treatments — as high as 80 percent among children, according to the US National Library of Health — yet access remains a challenge.
THE JOURNEY TO SURVIVAL
Following Ashfaq’s arrival at the NICH in 2023, my team quickly worked to diagnose and stabilise him, running blood tests and imaging studies, providing blood transfusions and medications over the next few hours. The results, confirmed the next day by a bone marrow test, revealed a diagnosis of ALL. The family was completely shocked, as they had never imagined a child could have cancer.
Following many hours of counselling, my oncology social workers and I worked to convince the family to arrange accommodation in Karachi. This was crucial because the child needed a long course of chemotherapy and, being immunocompromised, would not have been able to travel back and forth from home.
Ashfaq’s family initially refused, having already depleted their savings on the journey to Karachi. After two or three more sessions, we managed to convince the father — a farmhand — to give the child a fighting chance. I also emphasised that the disease has a good chance of a cure, provided the child receives the complete, necessary sessions of chemotherapy. The family ultimately agreed to stay and begin treatment for their child, full of hope for recovery.
FROM BEDRIDDEN TO THE PLAYGROUND
Today, on International Childhood Cancer Day, Ashfaq’s story represents both tragedy and triumph. After completing his rigorous chemotherapy regimen, he is now in remission — a joyous outcome for his family and our medical team. He returned home to Ghotki, joyfully reuniting with his family
Life began to resume its normal rhythm as he eagerly went back to his studies, embracing the future with renewed vigour. The family was grateful to the medical team for their care and the hospital for providing the child’s complete treatment free of cost, transforming a time of hardship into one of celebration and relief.
Without financial support, the same treatment would have cost at least Rs1 million over the course of treatment — a sum beyond what the family could afford. Given this financial barrier, his recovery demonstrates the power of comprehensive care and community support.
But Ashfaq’s access to such care is the exception, not the rule.
CLOSING THE GAP
Unfortunately, paediatric cancer treatment outcomes in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) significantly lag behind those in high-income countries. One reason for this disparity is accessibility to cancer care services for children with cancer.
Another major reason is high treatment abandonment rates — failure to start or complete curative-intent therapy after a cancer diagnosis. Broadly, lack of financial resources, medical facilities, and social support services contribute to the poor outcome rates we see in LMICs. Each of these barriers to treatment intersects and exacerbates the others.
In July 2025, Pakistan became the second country in the WHO-designated Eastern Mediterranean Region to join the Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines, co-founded by WHO and St Jude’s Children Research Hospital in Tennessee, USA. The platform aims to address the lack of treatment affecting at least 50 percent of paediatric patients and to increase their survival rate from 30 percent to 60 percent by 2030.
This is made possible thanks to the pledge of the government of Pakistan, the professional commitment of the Pakistan Society of Paediatric Oncology and the dedication of national stakeholders to standardise childhood cancer care and establish training and build research infrastructure in the country, thereby tackling low survival rates due to access issues.
Today, Ashfaq runs and plays with his siblings in Ghotki — a simple joy that seemed impossible when he arrived at our doors unable to walk. But for every child like him who makes it home, there are countless others who never reach us at all.
The question isn’t whether we can save these children. We know we can. The question is whether we will reach them in time.
The writer is head of the paediatric oncology department at NICH, Karachi, and chief oncologist of the medical charity Child Aid Association
Published in Dawn, EOS, February 15th, 2026
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پاکستان گڈز ٹرانسپورٹ الائنس نے کرایوں میں 3 فیصد اضافہ کر دیا
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