On 20 April 2023, they came for Gohar Wazir in Bannu. Not at his office. On the street, in the ordinary way that disappearances in this country happen, without announcement, without warrant, without the theatre of legitimacy that the state performs when it wants to be seen performing it. He was the president of the Bannu National Press Club, a local reporter whose phone number circulated among people who had nowhere else to call: the family whose land was being taken, the widow whose name had been removed from a government scheme, the teacher whose salary had not arrived in four months. In a district where every official door opens inward, Gohar Wazir was the door that still opened outward. They kept him for more than thirty hours.
What happened inside that undisclosed location was documented by the International Federation of Journalists and its Pakistan affiliate. He was subjected to electric shocks. He was forced to record a video in which he promised that he would stop criticising the government and the militant factions aligned with it in his district. When they were satisfied with what they had made him say, they returned him to the city in a condition that required medical attention. The police registered no case against his abductors. No one was charged. The lesson was delivered intact.
