Hawke's Bay case
A mass hysteria event with 18 deaths at Hawke's Bay Beach.
In late February 1983, a wave of religiously driven mass hysteria struck Karachi's Hawke's Bay Beach. The event, which involved Shia community members, left 18 people dead and roughly as many injured.
Quick Facts
- Date
- late February 1983
- Location
- Hawke's Bay Beach, Karachi
- Casualties
- 18
- Injuries
- a similar number
- Number of participants
- 38
- Leader
- Naseem Fatima (alternately, Nasreen Fatima)
- Community involved
- Shia
Facts from the source article.
Did You Know?
- The event was highly praised by Shias but ridiculed by Sunnis as 'insanity'.
- It inspired two chapters of Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses.
- Surviving pilgrims eventually reached Karbala after wealthy Shias paid their airfares, fulfilling the prophecy of free travel.
Incident
Thirty-eight Shias from a village in Chakwal Tehsil followed Naseem Fatima into the Arabian Sea. She claimed direct contact with the 12th Shia Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi and was a self-proclaimed miracle worker, despite not wearing the customary Muslim hijab. Her father, Willayet Shah, who had returned from Saudi Arabia with his Shia faith strengthened after Khomeini's Iranian Revolution, supported her. Fatima said the Mahdi instructed her to go to the Arabian Sea, where waters would part, allowing her and followers to walk to Basra and then to Najaf and Karbala without paying. She also claimed the Mahdi told her to place women and children in locked trunks carried by men. Most pilgrims drowned, including Fatima, after Karachi police arrived too late. Survivors were arrested for attempting to leave Pakistan without proper travel documents.
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