MURDERED as she visited the family was one of the options available for ending the Qandeel Baloch episode. There were not too many ways one could think of through which the story that had unfolded at breakneck speed could have been resolved. In the days preceding there was a prevailing sense as if something was about to give. The lady did not have too many options after she had failed to take the known means to resettlement in society.

It is not at all difficult to address her as a lady or as a heroine when she is no more there to bring disrepute to those who address her with respect. For the duration of the time she was there on stage hogging attention one point of concern — for at least some of the people in the crowd — was about where and to what conclusions her daring flight was to ultimately take her.

Pakistan is a country of vulnerable, frequently straying people. There have been other women who had diverted far away from the ‘right’ path. Some of those had later chosen total oblivion as an escape from the wrath and lust and honour-inspired curses they had been subjected to. Others, particularly a few in recent times, had confessed they were lucky to have rediscovered themselves via the most likely route in the Pakistani circumstances: religion brought to them by a pious guide-rescuer.

Qandeel Baloch might have been under the impression that she could prolong the confrontation she had picked with a society fed on formula.

The most famous has been the case of the film actor who chose to challenge both moral standards and norms of patriotism. She was saved by the timely intervention of the sages and put back on the right path. She has since been thrust in the faces of the Pakistani ‘sinners’ as an example of rehabilitation without altogether giving up this world.

There are a host of other stories about other well-known and not-so-prominent people who have been made to realise the sheer futility of the life they had been living. They were made to feel guilty about the ways in which they had been leading their lives and made to repent.

Qandeel Baloch had her chance. It is obvious that she was not ready to wrap up, conclude or resolve her story, or this particular phase of it, in the most obvious manner — despite that there was someone present to steer her through the ‘mess’. She might have been under the impression that she could as yet prolong the fever-pitch confrontation that she had so boldly picked with a society fed on formula, a society which had a tendency to look badly at those who acted other than routine.

Maybe she had her own idea of how and when she wanted to resolve the situation she had created by and large by herself. But the one man who had offered her a hand in escorting her towards the usual exit was quick to point out that there were lessons for others in her violent end: the lessons that most certainly promised condemnation for those who refused the formula answer.

Mufti Qavi, who now sat reading into Qandeel’s story and who had not too long ago offered her redemption, was no ordinary maulvi himself. If the young woman surprised many in the gaping audience with a steady stream of incidents from her past — standard scenes to build hype around her rise as a popular media personality, the mufti from the laid-back Multan was at the origins of so many incredulous stories on his own.

She was a rebel energised by experience and ambition. In his role as an arbiter people often took their issues to, he was known as advising caution and compromise over more dire remedies available to the parties. He had the reputation in Multan of being a man who favoured amicable settlements of all kinds of issues with minimum damage. Indeed he was not categorised as a pro-violence cleric of whom we have so many these days, and yes, he was given to these flights of fancy in which he cast himself as some kind of a romantic wanderer seeking the company of beautiful women.

Both lead characters in the story were media savvy and the media had no reason to fear any of them. Even the cleric didn’t scare the channels and papers in this case because he had no known militia at his command and it was clear after the initial probing on screen that he was not the kind who would resort to abuse and threat to get out of a tough spot.

The best he could do was to issue denial, which is a little difficult to accept unless accompanied by sufficient amount of force. In his present single-tone, even a little intimidated avatar he appeared docile enough for some of those who are not usually inclined towards speaking harsh of the clerics — any clerics — to openly question his character, aiding Qandeel Baloch to win rounds after rounds against him.

Since Qandeel Baloch’s death, Mufti Qavi has been referred to in some accounts as a suspect who might have encouraged her brother to kill her. Legal proceedings are under way to establish who was to blame how much for the tragic departure of the young woman from the stage she had taken by storm.

According to a version which may be considered too sympathetic to Mufti Qavi considering the sentiment against him, he has already paid a big price for his association with Qandeel Baloch. He might get himself rehabilitated in the set-up but it will take effort and time.

He can in the meanwhile be used as a target by all those who have been angered by the punishment the individual violating the moral code has been meted out. But so long as a large number of people here believe that he offered her the (only) alternative to death he must not worry too much.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2016