KARACHI: The launch of the book Society Girl authored by Tooba Masood-Khan and Saba Imtiaz, organised by Liberty Publishing at T2F on Saturday exhumed an unsolved 54-year-old high-profile murder mystery and scandal.

Both the authors and the moderator, Sanam Maher, being journalists, intrigued their audience with the details of the case and how research revealed so many different aspects to the story that were earlier clouded by the scandal and by the media and people pointing fingers at the woman found unconscious near the dead man.

The dead man was civil servant and poet Mustafa Zaidi. And the woman Shahnaz Gul, was a well-known socialite of the time.

On Sanam’s asking the authors why the particular case caught their attention, Tooba said that she was pulled to the story a little after her own father’s passing in 2015. “A friend said that my father liked Mustafa Zaidi’s poetry so I decided to read up on him,” she said.

Scandal surrounding poet Mustafa Zaidi, socialite Shahnaz Gul intrigues future generations

Saba, meanwhile, said that she had heard about it from her former late news editor Abul Hasanat. “He used say that Shahnaz was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen,” she said.

Both Tooba and Saba, also colleagues and friends, then joined forces when thinking about doing an investigative story. “Saba told me ‘if you want to do a story together, how about this?’,” Tooba said.

Saba said that they started interviewing people after that to find out that there was an established narrative about a ‘bad woman’s’ involvement with an ‘innocent poet’ while no one had cared to ask the obvious questions. Still, they were able to find a lot. “People helped. Many spoke to us. Some found old documents for us, including the court file of the actual case,” she said. “We realised that most of the things we were able to find were based on hearsay. It was plain gossip. The actual facts of the case got buried in character assassinations,” Saba added.

“Re-examining the evidence, we would come up with our own theories but only to find holes too,” said Tooba.

“It was initially, for us, a ‘whodunnit’ story, but then we saw what was else happening in the Pakistan of those days. First there was a military regime, then a civil war and so many other things,” said Saba.

“And amid all that, there would be Shahnaz’s face in the newspaper every day. She was everywhere except for the gardening section,” she shrugged.

“She was a readymade villain, someone to blame for all the high society ills,” Tooba added, shaking her head.

The authors initially did a podcast about the case, which caught the interest of many.

That has now progressed into the very interesting book that also has Shahnaz Gul’s face on its cover, with the appropriate title Society Girl.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2024