KARACHI: A gloomy Pakistan on Saturday bade farewell to its national hero Abdul Sattar Edhi, the founder of the country’s largest welfare organization who died Friday in Karachi aged 92.
Edhi, whose death was confirmed by his son Faisal, was revered for setting up maternity wards, morgues, orphanages, shelters and homes for the elderly, picking up where limited government-run services fell short.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced a state funeral and day of national mourning in honor of the man who owned just two sets of clothes, but whose work uplifting the nation’s destitute and orphans cemented his place in the hearts of Pakistan’s masses.
Edhi, known as a ‘servant of humanity’ and who also ran the world’s largest private ambulance network, was suffering from severe kidney problems according to his son.
Among those to attend the funeral was President Mamnoon Hussain, military chief General Raheel Sharif, governor of Sindh province Ishrat ul Ibad Khan, the chief ministers of Sindh and Punjab provinces and many other national politicians, notables and servicemen.
Edhi’s coffin, wrapped in the green national flag and covered with pink rose-petals, was carried on a military jeep into the national stadium in Karachi where there was a guard of honor as thousands paid tribute. Security officials said that a 21 gun salute was also offered.
Military Chief Raheel Sharif and Edhi’s son Faisal saluted the coffin as it was carried by soldiers.
But thousands of ordinary people who planned to attend the funeral were stopped several kilometers away from the ceremony for security reasons.
More than 3,000 security and traffic police officers were deployed as the coffin was taken for burial to Edhi Village near Karachi’s main National Highway, which Edhi himself had selected as a place for his grave 25 years ago.
Born to a family of Muslim traders in Gujarat in British India, Edhi arrived in Pakistan after its bloody creation in 1947.
The state’s failure to help his struggling family care for his mother — paralyzed and suffering from mental health issues — was his painful and decisive turning point toward philanthropy.
In the sticky streets in the heart of Karachi, Edhi, full of idealism and hope, opened his first medical clinic in 1951.
Abandoned children and the elderly, battered women, the disabled, drug addicts; Edhi’s foundation now houses some 5,700 people in 17 shelters across the country.
Nobel Peace Prize
The most prominent symbols of the foundation — its 1,500 ambulances — are deployed with unusual efficiency to the scene of extremist attacks that tear through Pakistan with devastating regularity.
The foundation’s adoption service sees unwanted children — many of them girls — left in cradles placed in front of every center, where they can be safely cared for.
Edhi has been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize, and appears on the list again this year — put there by Malala Yousafzai, Pakistan’s teenage Nobel laureate.
Frail and weak in his later years, he appointed his son Faisal as managing trustee in early 2016.
Edhi leaves behind his wife Bilquis and six children.
He gave until the very end, his son told AFP, seeking to donate all his body organs after death — though doctors said that due to his age he could only donate his corneas.
Children would run after him, to hold his hand and for small talk whenever he would visit the Edhi village.
He would refrain from taking showers to save water.
“We have to conserve water for our future generations and that is why I don’t misuse this precious gift of nature,” he told AFP in an earlier conversation.
During his last days and as his condition worsened, he refused offers to get medical treatment from abroad.
The last time Pakistan held a state funeral was for military dictator General Zia ul-Haq in 1988.
Gloomy Pakistan bids farewell to national hero
Gloomy Pakistan bids farewell to national hero
Luigi Mangione’s notes to self: ‘Pluck eyebrows,’ ‘Keep momentum, FBI slower overnight’
NEW YORK: Pluck eyebrows. Buy less conspicuous shoes. Take a bus or a train west toward Cincinnati and St. Louis. Move around late at night. Stay away from surveillance cameras.
A to-do list and travel plans found during Luigi Mangione’s arrest and revealed in court this week shed new light on the steps he may have taken — or planned to take — to avoid capture after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killing last year.
“Keep momentum, FBI slower overnight,” said one note. “Change hat, shoes, pluck eyebrows,” said another.
The notes, including a hand-drawn map and tactics for surviving on the lam, were shown on Monday at a pretrial hearing as Mangione’s bid to prevent prosecutors from using evidence seized during his Dec. 9, 2024, arrest at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Excerpts of body-worn camera footage of the arrest, previously unseen by the press or the public, were released on Tuesday.
Police said they discovered the notes in Mangione’s backpack, along with a 9 mm handgun that prosecutors said matches the one used to kill Thompson five days earlier; a loaded gun magazine and silencer; and a notebook in similar handwriting which he purportedly described his intent to “wack” a health insurance executive.
Mangione’s lawyers haven’t disputed the authenticity of the notes or the provenance of the gun, pocket knife, fake ID, driver’s license, passport, credit cards, AirPods, protein bar, travel toothpaste, flash drives and other items seized from him and his backpack.
But they argue that anything found in the bag should be barred because police didn’t have a search warrant and lacked the grounds to justify a warrantless search. Prosecutors contend the search was legal — officers said they were checking for a bomb — and that police eventually obtained a warrant.
The notes, along with other evidence highlighted at the pretrial hearing, underscore that Mangione’s stop in Altoona, a city of about 44,000 people about 230 miles west of Manhattan, was only meant to be temporary.
One note said to check for “red eyes” from Pittsburgh to Columbus, Ohio or part way to Cincinnati . The map drawn below shows lines linking those cities, as well as other possible destinations, including Detroit, Indianapolis and St. Louis.
Thompson, 50, was killed as he walked to a Manhattan hotel for his company’s investor conference on Dec. 4, 2024. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind and then fleeing the area. Over the next hours and days, police released photos of a suspect — first showing him in a mask and hooded coat and then his face and thick eyebrows.
Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges. The pretrial hearing, which resumes for a sixth day on Thursday, applies only to the state case. His lawyers are making a similar push to exclude the evidence from his federal case, where prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Among the notes revealed this week was one with a heading “12/5” and a starred entry that said: “buy black shoes .”
Another, also written in to-do list style, suggested spending more than three hours away from surveillance cameras and using different modes of transportation to “Break CAM continuity” and avoid tracking. Below that, it said: “check reports for current situation,” a possible reference to news reports about the search for Thompson’s killer.
According to prosecutors, Mangione fled to Newark, New Jersey, immediately after the shooting and took a train to Philadelphia. Among the evidence shown at the pretrial hearing was a Philadelphia transit pass purchased at 1:06 p.m. — a little more than six hours after the shooting — and a ticket for a Greyhound bus, booked under the name Sam Dawson, leaving Philadelphia at 6:30 p.m. and arriving in Pittsburgh at 11:55 p.m.
A note with the heading “12/8” lists a number of tasks, including an apparent trip to Best Buy to purchase a digital camera and accessories, “hot meal + water bottles,” and “trash bag.” Under “12/9,” the day of Mangione’s arrest, the note lists tasks including “Sheetz,” an Altoona-based convenience store chain, “masks” and “AAA bats.” Under “Future TO DO,” it listed “intel checkin” and “survival kit.”
Mangione had a Sheetz hoagie in his backpack when he was arrested, along with a loaf of Italian bread from a local deli, according to police officers testifying Monday and Tuesday. It had been raining, and the bag and items inside it were wet, the officers said. They were heard on body-worn camera footage played in court theorizing that Mangione had gotten soaked walking from the city’s bus station.
Police responded to the McDonald’s after a manager called 911 to relay concerns from customers who thought that Mangione, eating breakfast in a back corner, resembled the man wanted for killing Thompson. On the call, played in court, the manager could be heard saying that because Mangione was wearing a medical mask, she could only see his eyebrows and that she searched online for a photo of the suspect for comparison.
Altoona Police Officer Stephen Fox testified on Tuesday that Mangione, the Ivy League-educated scion of a wealthy Maryland family, expressed concern for the 911 caller’s wellbeing. Fox said Mangione asked if police had planned on releasing her name, which they didn’t. The officer recalled him saying: “It would be bad for her” and “there would be a lot of people that would be upset.”
At another point, Fox said, a shackled Mangione stumbled while trying to keep up with the brisk-moving officer. Fox said he apologized and said, “I forgot you were shackled.”
He said Mangione responded: “It’s OK, I’m going to have to get used to it.”
