The Tragedy of Murree: A Crime Against Humanity by Design

In the mist-laden hills of Murree, where the colonial elite once found respite from the oppressive heat of the subcontinent, a different kind of tragedy now unfolds. It is not written in the pages of history books but in the vacant eyes of children denied their birthright to education. The hill station that once served as the summer capital of the British Raj has become a monument to a new empire—the fiefdom of a business tycoon who has presided over the educational destruction of his own people for nearly four decades. This is not a story of neglect or oversight. This is a story of deliberate, calculated cruelty, a crime against humanity perpetuated by design so that one family could rule Murree without challenge, and the world has remained silent.

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s biography reads as a tale of privilege granted, not earned. A foreign-qualified electrical engineer, he holds a Master’s degree from George Washington University and a Bachelor’s from the University of California, Los Angeles, as he claims, but he has never proven that he is a genuine engineer. He speaks with the polished accent of the American elite, yet while he was educated in the finest institutions of the West, his constituents in Murree have been systematically denied even basic schooling. It is a grotesque irony that a man who exploited his political power as Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources to allegedly rig an LNG tender—defrauding the nation of billions—now stands as a symbol of what happens when political and economic power are concentrated in the hands of the few. The LNG scandal alone stripped the Pakistani exchequer of over $50 billion—a devastating blow independently analyzed by renowned economist Dr. Farrukh Saleem. compounding this damage, a single fatally flawed agreement drove circular debt beyond $13 billion, laying bare the sheer scale of this corruption. Had these disastrous practices not taken root, stability and economic peace would be a reality today across Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Azad Kashmir that has siphoned away wealth meant for the nation’s children. Even as the nation suffered from chronic energy shortages and blackouts, Abbasi was allegedly enriching himself, a crime that the National Accountability Bureau investigated and for which he was detained. Yet today, he walks free, his crimes buried beneath the rubble of a legal system he himself helped dismantle.

This is not a failure of the state alone. It is a deliberate act of violence against the human spirit, perpetuated by design. For sixty-five long years, Murree was deliberately denied education. Only one government degree college was established in 1959, and no other was allowed to be built. The political class preferred an illiterate Murree—a Murree that could be exploited, a Murree where people remained petty traders, property dealers, and unskilled hosts, rather than educated citizens capable of challenging their hegemony. This is the darkest truth: the deprivation of education was not an oversight but a strategy, a calculated plan to keep nearly a million people in darkness so that one family could rule without question. When a man with the resources to build schools chooses instead to build luxury coffee chains, when he allocates his energy to expanding his business empire rather than the minds of his constituents, he is not merely negligent—he is predatory. The people of Murree are not just the victims of economic disparity; they are prisoners in their own land, held captive by a feudal lord who dresses in suits and speaks in the polished language of corporate governance but acts with the brutality of a medieval tyrant.

The numbers from Murree’s recent 9th-grade examinations are staggering in their tragedy. Out of 4,961 public and private candidates, only 1,717 passed, yielding a pass rate of just 36 percent. A shocking 64 percent—3,184 students—failed. Even in private schools, the pass rate stood at a dismal 24 percent. Across Punjab, 43,000 government schools cater to 12.5 million students, while 20 million children attend private institutions, filling the coffers of investors. An alarming 27 million children remain completely out of school—a figure so vast it constitutes a national catastrophe. When the Punjab Government privatized 5,800 schools, over 700,000 children dropped out of public schools in a single year alone. This is not an accident; it is the deliberate hemorrhaging of the nation’s future to benefit a select few. The government’s allocation of PKR 750 billion to education—15 percent of the total budget—might appear significant until one realizes that half of it is consumed by bureaucratic luxuries and procurement commissions. When Pakistan spends roughly 100,000 PKR per child annually on education, yet fails to teach basic literacy, it is not a sign of inadequate resources but of organized theft of opportunity.

But perhaps the most damning evidence lies in the contrast between Abbasi’s personal actions and his public neglect. When he became Prime Minister in 2017, he chose to visit his alma mater, Lawrence College in Ghora Gali, to celebrate its 157th foundation day, reminiscing about the “golden time period of my life” he spent there. On that occasion, he announced a grant of Rs. 200 million for the college’s development. Lawrence College, a prestigious institution that has produced Pakistan’s elite for generations, received the Prime Minister’s personal attention and funds. Yet the schools of ordinary Murree—government high schools without heads, without boundary walls, without basic science laboratories—remained abandoned. At least 24 government high schools in Murree were being run without principals for years. More than 80 percent of boys’ schools and 20 percent of girls’ high schools lacked boundary walls, leaving children vulnerable. Schools upgraded to higher secondary level ten years prior had not a single faculty member recruited. The stark contrast could not be clearer: the elite institution that educated the Prime Minister received royal patronage, while the institutions meant for ordinary Murree were left to rot.

While Abbasi’s business empire expanded to include the launch of Tim Hortons in Pakistan—the famed Canadian coffee chain—and while his son Abdullah became the driving force behind bringing this luxury to Pakistan’s elite, the people of Murree could barely afford a single meal. The juxtaposition is jarring: a son of the soil who introduces North American luxury to the Pakistani elite while his own people languish in educational darkness. The “Hotel Mafia” of Murree—the powerful network of hoteliers, parking contractors, and agents who exploit tourists through price gouging and harassment—thrives in an environment where the lack of education ensures a supply of desperate laborers willing to work for pennies, their spirits broken and their futures stolen. In Murree, where the academic session starts in March and ends in December, the long winter vacations mean students cannot perform well in exams. The school timetable falls prey to union politics, forcing parents to shift their children to private institutions. This collusion between bureaucracy and union officials proves that both sides have been gambling with education for decades.

Consider the tragedy of the headmaster who enrolled his own child in his government school, defying the cultural norm of private schooling for the elite. This man is labeled a “failure” because of a 0 percent pass rate—a pass rate that is a direct consequence of a system that forbids failing underperforming students until the 8th grade. The government has not only extracted forced labor from teachers but has systematically stripped them of their rights: wage cuts, reduced pensions, the abolition of pensionable jobs, and the elimination of leave encashment. Teachers who could be building the nation are instead forced to administer polio drops, conduct population censuses, and clean sewage systems. The document reveals a deeply disturbing truth: the government treats its teachers as forced laborers, assigning them non-teaching duties that have nothing to do with education. These are not the tasks of educators; they are the tasks of a colonial administration exploiting its workforce. It is a regime of economic terror, designed to break the spirit of those who might otherwise build the nation.

The first cracks in Murree’s educational hope showed in 1988, when behavior towards tourists began to sour. By the 2000s, the decline had become public shame. The people demanded education, and in 2020, at last, the Government of Punjab established Kohsar University through the Kohsar University Murree Act. For the first time in sixty-five years, hope returned. Then came betrayal. The government appointed a Vice Chancellor whose CV seemed like the sky—prestigious fellowships such as Commonwealth and Fulbright, postdoctoral work at Glasgow, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and Pennsylvania. On paper, he was a champion of knowledge. In reality, he was a hollow salesman of credentials. Instead of strengthening intermediate education, he poured time and funds into vanity—launching a BS program in Tourism and Hospitality while tourist harassment increased, organizing flashy conferences far removed from Murree’s needs. The colleges decayed. In 2018, before the university takeover, the Boys’ College recorded an 84.67 percent pass rate. By 2024, the story had collapsed. The Boys’ College shrank from 150 students to just 33, of whom only 26 passed. The Women’s College fared no better. Where once they nurtured hope, now they broadcast despair. This is not mere negligence. This is a crime—a crime greater than treason. Treason breaks borders, but this betrayal breaks generations. Treason endangers the state, but this endangers the soul of a nation.

And in this hour of despair, where does the people’s voice find echo? Where can the mothers of Murree, their children condemned to ignorance, turn for justice? They turn to the very man who has presided over their suffering. Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has launched a new political party, Awaam Pakistan (AP), which translates to “People of Pakistan.” Every day, he speaks of reforms, of reimagining governance, of fixing a broken system. He paints himself as a champion of the common man, a voice against the establishment, a leader who will cleanse the nation of its ills. And astonishingly, he wants to be Prime Minister again. How is this possible? How can the man who kept his own people in the dark for thirty-five years be hailed as a reformer? The answer lies in a cynical collusion of power and privilege. The media, ever hungry for access and influence, has been complicit in this grotesque deception. Abbasi’s path to power was paved with money and connections. He is the owner of an airline, the proprietor of a burger chain, a man who moves in a world of five-star hotels and free air tickets. He has openly boasted that the Pakistani media is “in his pocket.” This is not arrogance; it is a confession. The media projects him as a hero, his image polished by lavish press conferences and free meals, while his people starve for knowledge. They never mention the 220 billion rupee LNG scandal that defrauded the nation. They never question why he, as the local MNA and then Prime Minister, did not build a single college for the people of Murree. They ignore his crime against humanity because it is buried beneath the weight of their own silence. The allegations of corruption, from the LNG contract to the PSO illegal recruitments, have been systematically swept aside. The NAB laws, which he himself helped change during his tenure, were used to shield him and his allies from accountability. The cases against him are over, not because he is innocent, but because the legal system was rigged in his favor. The Supreme Court ultimately struck down these amendments, reviving the cases against him and seven other former prime ministers who had benefited from them, but justice moves slowly, and in the meantime, the people of Murree continue to suffer.

Every tear of the Murree mother is a testament to this injustice. Her child, whom she cannot send to a functional school, has no choice but to become a laborer for the “Hotel Mafia,” a servant to the tourists who flock to the hills. When Abbasi speaks of “reimagining Pakistan,” he is speaking of a Pakistan that exists only in his imagination—a Pakistan where the elite dine on Tim Hortons while the masses are fed lies. The people of Murree are helpless witnesses to this tragedy. Their voices are drowned out by the media’s applause for their oppressor, and their future has been stolen by a man who claims he wants to give it back. This is the cruelest irony: the man who deprived them of education now wants their votes. The man who designed their darkness now promises them light. And the world watches, silent, while this crime against humanity continues.

Nowhere in the civilized world does a former Prime Minister keep his own constituency in educational darkness to perpetuate his family legacy. In every functioning democracy, leaders compete to bring schools, colleges, and universities to their people. They cut ribbons at new institutions; they boast of literacy rates; they invest in the future. In Murree, the Prime Minister cuts ribbons at his alma mater while the children of his own constituents sit under the open sky, without boundary walls, without teachers, without hope. This is not a developing nation’s struggle; this is a medieval fiefdom maintained through ignorance. This is a crime against humanity that has no parallel in the modern world, except perhaps in the darkest chapters of colonial history.

The deprivation of education is a crime against humanity, recognized by international law as a violation of fundamental human rights. The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child enshrine the right to education as inalienable. When Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and his ilk deliberately undermine the educational system of Murree, they are not just failing their constituents—they are committing a crime of the highest order. His crime is not merely one of omission but of commission. By restricting educational opportunities, he ensures a populace that cannot read, cannot calculate, and cannot challenge his economic and political supremacy. This is the very definition of deliberate underdevelopment—a strategy used by colonial powers to subjugate populations. Abbasi is not a Pakistani patriot; he is a colonial overlord in a post-colonial world, maintaining his fiefdom through the ignorance of his subjects.

The global community must act. The International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice must recognize the systematic denial of education as a crime against humanity. It is the duty of the world community to hold accountable those who, like Abbasi, use political power to enrich themselves at the expense of their people’s future. The city of Murree, once the summer capital of the British Raj, has become a symbol of the new feudalism, where one man’s business empire is built on the bodies and minds of an exploited populace. This is a case study for Harvard University’s Center for International Development—how a business tycoon who owned an airline and a burger chain used his political power to systematically deprive nearly a million people of education for sixty-five years, how he maintained his stranglehold on power through the weaponization of ignorance, and how the international community remained complicit through silence.

As the sun sets over the Himalayan foothills, casting long shadows over the crumbling schoolhouses of Murree, one cannot help but weep. We weep for the children who will never read a book, for the mothers who will never see their children prosper, for the nation that is being stripped of its future. We weep because the man responsible for this tragedy walks free, hailed as a reformer, invited to media studios, fed five-star meals, and given a platform to promise reforms he never delivered. But tears, however bloody, are not enough. They must be followed by action—by the relentless pursuit of justice, by the unyielding demand for accountability, and by the steadfast refusal to accept this tragedy as inevitable.

The people of Murree deserve not just our sympathy but our solidarity, our support, and our action. Their fight is our fight, and their future is our future. We must not rest until justice is served, until every child in Murree has the opportunity to learn, and until the legacy of hegemonic exploitation is forever shattered. The world must demand that Shahid Khaqan Abbasi be held accountable—not just for his corruption, not just for his business empires, but for the systematic destruction of his own people’s potential. The United Nations must investigate this crime against humanity. The International Criminal Court must issue indictments. And the people of Murree must finally see justice.

This is the tragedy of Murree—a tragedy written in the blood of a million children, a tragedy that the world cannot afford to ignore. May Allah grant that instead of sacrificing the education sector to constant experimentation, we come under the guidance of true educational experts who will rebuild what has been destroyed. But until then, the people of Murree weep, and the world must weep with them, and then rise to demand justice.