MONEY MADNESS (PB)
By Aijaz Ali Khuwaja

The Pakistani Writer's Powerful First NovelIn the bustling city of Karachi, Pakistan, four lifelong friends-Akbar, Akhtar, Menghraj, and Mubashar-struggle to build better futures while navigating the harsh realities of lower-middle-class life. They juggle modest jobs and small businesses, fueled by ambition and bound by brotherhood.One seemingly ordinary morning, their world is turned upside down when Akbar discovers an astonishing 250 million Pakistani rupees mysteriously deposited into his nearly empty bank account. Believing it to be a banking error, he brushes it off-until the bank manager urgently summons him, demanding the immediate return of the funds and a signed legal statement.Confused and panicked, Akbar calls on his friends for support. As they gather at his apartment over tea and nervous laughter, wild possibilities are debated-should they disappear, invest the money, or confess? What begins as a dilemma soon unravels into a deepening mystery, testing their values, their loyalty, and their courage.Amid the tension, Mubashar shares a heartfelt flashback of his lost love, Afsheen-a civil engineering student he met during rainy evenings at an evening class in Hyderabad in the late 1980s. Their love story blossomed during their university days at Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, and Mehran University, Jamshoro, only to be abruptly ended when Afsheen and her family fled to America during escalating communal violence. The memory serves as a poignant break from the chaos of the present and a reminder of what truly matters.Back in the present, as the friends dig deeper, suspicions grow-what if the money wasn't a mistake? In 2023, reports of money laundering using poor citizens' bank accounts surfaced across Pakistan. Could they have unknowingly become pawns in a dangerous criminal network?

The truth begins to emerge-but at a devastating cost. Akbar is murdered by unknown assailants, and the remaining three friends receive ominous threats. Fearing for their lives but driven by justice, they escalate the case to the Inspector General of Police, uncovering a chilling pattern: thousands of poor citizens have unknowingly been used in money-laundering schemes. Akbar's case is now one of many awaiting justice in Pakistan's overburdened courts.