Imran: after the scaffold fell

The case (fictional)

Imran is 41 and comes from a village near Jhelum. For eleven years he worked as a site foreman in Dubai, sending money home to his wife, their three children and his widowed mother. Fourteen months ago a scaffold collapsed and a young worker from his own district, whom Imran had put on that shift, fell and died in front of him. Imran was not hurt.

He finished his contract and came home eight months ago. He has not worked since. Images of the fall come "like a film", he wakes from nightmares shouting, and he takes a long route to the mosque so that he does not pass the dead man's family home. He snaps at his children; once he threw a plate, then stayed out all night, ashamed. "I should have checked the boards," he says. "It is on me."

He smokes about 25 cigarettes a day, sleeps four hours a night and complains of chest tightness. He has seen three doctors, and a pir who gave him a taweez. His brothers tell him to "be a man" and go back abroad, as the savings are nearly gone.

His wife is worried but says that when they are alone he is gentle with her. He prays regularly and says his faith keeps him going. He denies any plan to end his life, but says he sometimes wishes he had died instead.