The graveyard is located close to the head office of Khan Research Laboratories, where Pakistan developed its nuclear bomb.

This is also close to Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto International Airport, transiting thousands of impoverished Pakistanis to the Gulf states in search of a good price for their sweat and blood.

The graveyard is no different from innumerable others. Hundreds of graves, many cemented, some with marble tiles and headstones, some made of mud, wild grass growing on them. Some very old — caved in because of neglect — others fresh.

One of these is the grave of 22-year-old Khawar, who died in March in Bahrain.

Khawar wanted to fight the soldier’s fight. But he was killed in a bomb attack, and that too in a foreign land. The bomb was planted near Bahrain’s capital Manama, targeting his vehicle.

Also Read: Bahrain recruiting former military men to quell protests

Khawar was one of the hundreds of Pakistanis who have been recruited recently by the Bahraini government into their security forces to quell the unrest kicked up every now and then by Bahrain’s majority Shia population, who are resisting the ruling minority Sunni Royal family.

Pakistanis, especially the Sunni ex-servicemen, are very popular with the Bahraini rulers — they fight to earn better wages for their poor families back home.

Khawar’s father was employed in a government office in Manama and his family was settled there too.

So, when the opportunity came his way to become a soldier, to don a decorated uniform and earn a lucrative amount of money, he took it.

He applied for the security service.

His Pakistani and Sunni background worked for him and he got the job. The salary was good — well over Rs100,000 and the work was not difficult.

But then he was killed. “His father was so upset over his death, he would not say anything about him,” says his cousin Rashid Mehmood. “His family came here to bury him, stayed for a few days and then went back. The incident was so sudden, so shocking that we could not ask his parents about his job. There were questions in our minds such as why did he enlist in the Bahraini security force. Why did he not join the Pakistan Army?”

“My uncle did not want to disclose too much information about his son’s job,” said Mehmood. “We also did not insist. We just condoled and then they left.”

“Don’t ask, please. Don’t think about talking to his father. He is still ruing for allowing his son to take up this job,” Mehmood warned me when I asked for his uncle’s telephone number.

A senior retired general of the Pakistan Army, who was once the brains behind Pakistan’s strategic security and now runs an office sending ex-servicemen abroad, believes that up to 5,000 Pakistani guards have gone to Bahrain.

Also Read: Pakistanis in Bahrain

Recruitment was in full swing after the Egypt revolution in 2011, when the Bahraini government feared an uprising there, too. “Then it was stopped because there was a backlash against the Pakistani community,” the retired general said on the condition of anonymity.

Several Pakistanis have been killed here in recent years during violence launched by the locals against the Pakistanis.

Officials of the two military-related organisations, who have been sending ex-soldiers for these jobs to Bahrain, are tight-lipped. But people privy to the process say that the last batch was recruited in March this year. “We manage the recruitments and send people over to Bahrain whenever there is a requirement.

Currently there is no demand,” said Azhar Iqbal, general manager of Bahria Foundation’s recruitment wing, declining to offer any further comments. “Please approach the Public Relations wing of the Pakistan Navy.”

But a Navy spokesperson said the recruitment office of the Foundation doesn’t officially come under the Pakistan Navy. “They have their own communications wing and they should themselves respond to your queries,” he said.

Colonel Masood, a senior official at the Fauji Foundation recruitment wing, refused to comment, saying that he should be approached through proper official channels. “I will not comment on this issue until and unless I know who you are and why you are asking these questions,” he said.

The Foreign Office, the apex government authority dealing with Pakistanis abroad, also does not seem to have information about such cases.

“Thousands of people go to the Gulf for work. We are not sending people to work for the security forces of other countries. Hence, I am unaware about the issue,” said Tasneem Aslam, the FO spokesperson.

But a resident of Attock district, who serves as a soldier in the Bahraini Royal forces in Manama, says there are quite a large number of Pakistanis that are recruited in Bahrain’s security forces.

“Thousands of Pakistanis are working in Bahrain’s police and Royal forces. I was recruited around two years ago,” he told me in a communication from Manama while requesting anonymity.

“We all have come here to work in the services because we are paid fabulously. We earn around Rs150,000 a month for just 15 days of work. The job becomes risky when violent protests erupt, but there are risks in Pakistan, too. Here, at least we are earning good money for our families back home. Even if we die in another country, so what? We can die in a bomb blast in Pakistan as well; thousands have already died in such attacks. At least we can send a good amount of money to our children before dying here.”

“In our own country, we will get nothing,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2014