Islamabad, Pakistan – The sign above the Rana Malik Center, a dairy shop in Islamabad’s G-10 neighbourhood, advertises milk, fresh yoghurt, lassi and desi ghee. Rana Muhammad Ijaz has lived with his family in the apartment above for more than three decades. Sitting outside his shop in late October, Ijaz recalled how his youngest daughter, Laiba, would make tea for him every morning and then again at night before bedtime.
Ijaz sat outside his shop, remembering her. According to the initial findings of a police case, she likely died by suicide after she and her family were defrauded of millions of rupees – tens of thousands of dollars – by a man who promised her admission to Harvard University in the United States. Muhammad Noman, accused of the fraud, was arrested two days later.
He died on October 20 after being shot while in police custody. Police said his accomplices had opened fire to free him. On October 21, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi visited the family and handed over more than 5 million rupees ($18,000) that officials said had been recovered from Noman.
But that money means little to Ijaz and his family. What mattered most – his daughter – is gone. Ijaz studied until the eighth grade and his wife until grade 10, but all four of their daughters went to university.
Two of the sisters studied mathematics while one of Laiba’s elder sisters spent a year in China on a scholarship, learning Mandarin. Laiba, too, studied on scholarships, her father said, and won the gold medal at her university. Laiba later taught science at an Islamabad school and gave out-of-school tuition classes to children between grades 2 and 6.
IIUI offered her a scholarship to study in Saudi Arabia, but she wanted to pursue higher studies in the US, her father said. She asked him to pay for her studies abroad. He told her: “My dear daughter, I will.” “From there, we started preparing,” Ijaz said.
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