IT WAS very upsetting to read about the tragic circumstances in which the death of an eminent person like Niaz A. Naik occurred. ( Aug 9).

Apparently, he got murdered some three or four days prior to his body being discovered by a foreign office personnel, who felt some foul smell emanating from his residence. The report says “The Foreign Office till his death continued benefiting from his experience and he was regularly consulted on important issues by the government.”

All those seeking his advice for free seemed to be only interested in getting their own work done.

But, it did not occur to any of them that he was living alone at the age of 83 and had been the leading Pakistani figure of the backchannel talks between Pakistan and India, which made him vulnerable to attack by various entities.

The authorities should have deputed police personnel for his protection and also installed some kind of intruder detector which could automatically alert the security people or be actuated by Mr Naik, if he felt endangered.

From the way he was apparently tortured to death, it seems that the person(s) who killed him probably tried to extract some information from him, otherwise, if the objective was only to silence him, then a bullet would quickly have done that, allowing the murderer(s) to escape immediately.

The question is who could have been interested in prying into state secrets, probably related to the back-channel matters, possessed by him? It could have been an intelligence operative from a foreign country or somebody wanting to keep him from participating anymore in that venture.

It could also have been somebody wishing to prevent his appearance as a witness in anybody's trial.

Whatever the reasons for his assassination, it is unfortunate he was left so insecure as to be attacked by anyone very easily. May Allah bless his soul. -- Aameen.

An aggrieved Pakistani
Karachi