Living like a fugitive

July 26, 2015 00:19

The most famous television journalist in Pakistan lives like a fugitive. Hamid Mir tells no one where he is going, how he will get there or where he will spend the night.

At Mirs office, his curtains are always drawn. He uses at least two cellphones and, until recently, he rotated among three residences to obscure his precise location, even from friends.

Even with all these precautions, Mir is anxious and jittery, most of all when he gets into the back seat of his bulletproof car to drive to the television studios for his show, Capital Talk.

Most nerve-racking part of the day, says the 49-year-old father of two, clenching the grab bar above him on a recent morning as the driver careens through the city taking last-minute instructions on which roads to take. Mir ignores incoming calls from unknown numbers and swivels from side to side, watching traffic to see whether any vehicle stays too close for too long.

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