I graduated from the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) in 2024 and the last time I saw all my batchmates together was December of that same year. A reunion dinner should’ve brought us together, maybe in ten years or so. Instead, there we were right outside university after not even two years had passed, rallying for justice and answers. A murder should not have been the thing to bring us together, but there we were. And here we still are.
Mir Raza was a 25-year-old IBA graduate with a notable food business that started as a humble cart called Wafflix. In the early hours of July 28, 2026, Mir was brutally murdered and his body was cruelly disposed of in some bushes, with his face disfigured beyond recognition. According to the family’s lawyer, Mohammed Jibran Nasir, had the family not gone door-to-door in search of any traceable CCTV footage after his disappearance, Mir could’ve been quietly buried – unidentified and untraced.
In mainstream media, Mir is being described as a ‘businessman’ and an ‘entrepreneur’ – which he undoubtedly was. But these labels paint a picture of an experienced individual already seasoned by life. They fail to recognise that before being a businessman, he was just a kid like the rest of us who are still stumbling through life trying to find our bearings in this newly discovered adulthood. The people close to Mir remember him by his generosity, his composure and his ability to befriend anyone. They remember him showing up as a son, as a brother, and as a friend; over and over again.
A little over a month has passed and Mir’s case has already faced what can only be called several instances of obstruction of justice – the readymade, one-size-fits-all suicide theory for what was later proven to be murder; the eleventh-hour reconstitution of the medico-legal board before Mir’s exhumation; the investigation team’s failure to secure relevant CCTV footage and admit Mir’s smartwatch as evidence; and, neither the last nor the least, the filing of almost a hundred FIRs (First Information Reports) against peaceful protesters. Are the police going to be answerable for each and every prolongation of the family’s pain and distress? Are they going to be able to explain why a new medical board was installed only hours before the scheduled exhumation? Will the officer who allegedly withheld Mir’s smartwatch for several days be charged with evidence tampering in the court of law? And finally, will the protesters who had to seek interim bail be given an explanation for why their constitutional right to protest was called in question?
Article 16 of the Constitution states that “every citizen shall have the right to assemble peacefully and without arms, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of public order.” Despite what we’ve gotten used to, cold-blooded murder and a manipulated investigation are very much against public order. Therefore, a protest demanding accountability – that has not, at any point, turned violent or unruly or blocked traffic – is the very definition of being in the interest of public order. Under Section 504 of the Pakistan Penal Code, the protesters were booked for “intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace”, but in a city where the family of a murdered child had to re-dig their son’s grave, along with their wounds that hadn’t even scarred over, just to prove that he was murdered – is there even peace left to breach?
Unfortunately, our public has become accustomed to this lack of peace, and to death as an extension of it. So much so that it entangles itself in questions entirely irrelevant to meaningful change. Questions about his finances, his family and his fiancé – these are all pointless in the face of the only question that matters: Who murdered Mir Raza? It is this very question through which this city stands to gain even a semblance of accountability, transparency and justice. And justice will be had.
