The First Encounter

Khalid Sultan came to Khawaja Saleh's house ostensibly to listens to and address the concerns of the residents but actually to dangle some carrot before Khawaja saleh.

But the meeting turned into the First Encounter.

Before I tell you what exactly happened there let me fill you in with some background so we are on the same page.

For quite some time residents had been fuming because they had certain grievances against the way things were being run by Khalid Sultan and his sychophants.

Prior to this gathering at 16 Jhelum, Khawaja Saleh's residence, a larger group of residents had coalesced around a core of independent, like-minded, and hard nose critics who had the guts to stand up to a bunch of arrogant, incompetent crooks who were running the society and colony into ground.

This core group spent most of their evenings discussing the latest news emerging from the society office or just shooting the breeze.

One day, this core group was invited to an inauguration of couple of shops at Sutlej Market where then secretary, Arshad Cheema, was chief guest. At that time the group tried to request the secretary to beef up security arrangements of the colony and address some other issues. But, first, Arshad Cheema tried to shoo them off. But when they proved themselves to be hard nuts to crack he acquiesced and promised to have weekly formal meetings with them.

But he never showed up for any of the promised meetings.

The group decided to write a letter to Khalid Sultan informing him of what had transpired/ not transpired.

Lo and behold, Arshad Cheema arranged a meeting in Sutlej Park and proposed that Khawaja Saleh be made a member of the Management Committee on behalf of the residents.

One of the core group told him that the group had their own plan and proposals and they would be discussed at a suitable time.

At the end of the said meeting Khawaja Saleh publicly announced that Khalid Sultan was coming to a lunch meeting at 16 Jhelum and he invited the residents to be there for the meeting.

That lunch meeting turned into the first encounter when one of the residents bluntly told Khalid Sultan and Arshad Cheema that the corrupt ways of Agha Shah Muhammad's days were still being perpetuated at certain level and to certain extent and there must be more than fifty per cent representation of the residents in the management Committee.

That was a grave allegation and a bold proposal. (The resident who had brought this issue up, later, told Khalid Sultan later that he had proof of what he had said in balck and white, in his pocket, if he was interested. Khalid Sultan, obviously, was not interested.)

To cool things off people were called to the lunch table where Khalid Sultan promised that residents would have sixty per cent representation starting in December this year and to start things off in the right direction Khawaja Saleh would be made a member of the Management Committee in the next Committee meeting.

Khalid Sultan asked Arshad Cheema to put these two decisions in the minutes for approval in the next meeting.

I will tell you what happened in the next meeting in my next post. (Probably you can guess it right.)