On 30 July 2005, Masood Janjua, a Rawalpindi entrepreneur, set off for a bus trip to Peshawar – and vanished without a trace. A friend he was supposed to be travelling with, Faisal Faraz, also disappeared. The bus company confirmed bookings in the men’s names but in the short distance from their homes to the bus station, it seemed as if they had slipped into another dimension.
Most of us have, at some point, experienced the failure of a loved one to turn up at the expected time and place, and the delirium that follows. The repeated checking of the clock, the monitoring of the silent phone, the paranoid worst-case scenarios ticked off by a racing mind. As time slips by, numerous internal struggles start – should one call the police or is it too early? Should the missing person be worried over or blamed for not arriving? Had anything happened in the past days that could have prompted this absence?
