Uncounted but dead: Unknown casualties of Pakistan’s most recent political conflict

Islamabad, Pakistan – Anees Shehzad’s death certificate says he died from a pelvic injury and gunshot wound.

He was killed while protesting alongside thousands of supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan in the capital, Islamabad, on November 26, following clashes with security forces. Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) insists that he was among a dozen civilians killed in police firing that day.

However, according to the government, no protester was killed, not even Shehzad, 20.

A week after PTI members laid siege to Islamabad and were subsequently dispersed in a late-night operation by law enforcement agencies, the government and the PTI are locked in a tense standoff over conflicting accounts of the number of casualties during those clashes.

While some PTI leaders initially said hundreds of supporters had been killed, party chairman Gohar Ali Khan later said the number of dead protesters stood at 12.

Attaullah Tarar, the federal information minister, mocked that discrepancy in a message on social media platform X on Tuesday. “These bodies will only be found on TikTok, Facebook and WhatsApp. They are playing politics of jokes and lies with the nation,” Tarar wrote in his message in Urdu.

Earlier, on November 28, during a press interaction with foreign media, Tarar maintained that there were no deaths during the protests.

He cited statements from Islamabad’s two largest public hospitals — PIMS and Poly Clinic — stating they had received no bodies. “The health department has issued two separate statements confirming this,” he said in response to a question from Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera spoke to the families of four PTI supporters, including Shehzad, killed in the clashes with security forces, and also reached out to Tarar, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and Rana Sanaullah, the political adviser to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, to seek their comments on the claims and counterclaims. However, no one in the authority responded.

The PTI has now released the names of the 12 supporters it says were killed between November 24 and 26, with at least 10 reportedly suffering bullet wounds. Among them was Shehzad, from Kotli Sattian, a small town in Punjab province.

‘Still in shock’
Shehzad’s cousin, Nafees Satti, described the young man as a devoted PTI supporter who insisted on joining the rally. “We all tried to stop him, but he was adamant because Imran Khan, his political idol, had called for it,” Satti told Al Jazeera.

The demonstrators, led by Bushra Bibi, Khan’s wife, were demanding a reversal of February’s election results, the release of political prisoners, including Khan, and the annulment of a constitutional amendment allowing government oversight of senior judicial appointments.

On the afternoon of November 26, hundreds of PTI supporters managed to reach the D-Chowk, the protest’s focal point near Islamabad’s government buildings, where they set fire to police kiosks, chanted slogans in favour of Khan and waved party flags. Shehzad was one of them.

The protesters soon encountered paramilitary forces using tear gas and rubber bullets. They also allegedly fired live rounds, though the government denies it.

Shehzad’s family received a call from Poly Clinic at about 4pm, informing them that he had been critically injured. By the time they arrived, Anees had succumbed to his injuries.

“It’s been a week, but his mother and youngest brother are still in shock,” Satti said. “His brother keeps fainting now and then. Our entire family is devastated.”

‘The call suddenly dropped’
The tragedy extends beyond Anees’s family. Another PTI supporter, Mobeen Aurangzeb, 24, from Abbottabad, was the sole breadwinner for a family of nine and had been living in Islamabad for several years.

His younger brother, Asad, said Mobeen, an active PTI member, had planned to attend the protest, but the family did not realise the extent of the risks involved.

“He was talking to my sister on the phone when the call suddenly dropped. When she called back, a stranger answered and told her that Mobeen had been shot and was being taken to hospital,” Asad recounted.

Asad and other family members struggled to reach Poly Clinic, where Mobeen had been taken. Roads had been closed to stop more waves of protesters from reaching the heart of Islamabad, and those who reached the hospital said authorities there were uncooperative.

“The hospital people initially refused to release the body. After hours of pleading, they handed it over around midnight,” Asad said.

The family is still struggling to cope with their loss. “He was the first son after three sisters and our parents’ favourite. You cannot imagine their state,” 22-year-old Asad said, adding that the responsibility of supporting the family now falls on him.

Other family members who spoke to Al Jazeera also recounted tales of how difficult it was for them to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones from the hospital authorities, as they claimed they were pressured into signing affidavits committing to not filing first information reports (FIRs) and pursuing legal cases against security forces.

‘They kept pressuring me’
Like Mobeen’s family, Abdul Wali from Mardan, a city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, struggled to retrieve the body of his brother, Malik Sadar Ali, who died on the evening of November 26.

Sadar Ali, an active PTI member who frequently travelled from Dubai to attend party events, was killed due to a “firearm injury” in his head, according to the death certificate from PIMS hospital, seen by Al Jazeera.

Wali said law enforcement officers tried to pressure him to sign a statement promising not to file an FIR about his brother’s killing.

“They kept pressuring me, but how could I promise that when my brother was murdered?” he said. It was only after persistent pleading that the family was allowed to take Ali’s body for burial. They had waited for more than 12 hours at that point.

The list of PTI victims also includes Mohammad Ilyas, who was killed in a hit-and-run incident allegedly involving security forces on November 25 night.

Ilyas’s body was taken to PIMS in the early hours of November 26, according to his death certificate issued by the hospital and seen by Al Jazeera.

His elder brother, Safeer Ali, who himself spent almost four weeks in jail after PTI’s previous protest call in October, said he and Ilyas were joined by other party workers as they gathered at an entry point of Islamabad to welcome a convoy of supporters arriving from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on November 25 night.

Ali described the chaos of that night as security vehicles sped through a crowd of protesters. “They hit several people, including my brother,” he said.

He claimed hospital authorities delayed releasing Ilyas’s body and tried to coerce him into absolving law enforcement of blame. “I refused to give such a statement, so they made me wait over 12 hours before handing over the body,” he said.

But he said, despite losing his brother or spending time in jail himself, his support for the PTI and its leader Khan remained undiminished.

“Look, my father died in ethnic violence in Karachi in 1987. Now my brother got killed while his wife is six months pregnant,” Ali said. “But these setbacks will not change my support for PTI or Khan. We are ideological supporters, and we will give our life for Khan.”