Pakistan, July 8 -- June in Quetta marks summer in its most oppressive sense as daytime temperatures start to soar. The month also marks the end of the Government fiscal year. Businesses are busy reconciling their accounts, bureaucrats are buried in ledgers, politicians line up outside Finance offices, and influentials can be seen trying to get a piece of the PSDP pie. Together, they raise the temperature of the city yet another degree.

On 5th June 2026, however, the city was consumed by a different kind of heat - far more sinister and deeply unsettling. A female doctor working as a postgraduate trainee at the largest tertiary care hospital in the province is subjected to an acid attack. Social media erupts, civil society gets agitated, ...