Islamabad:
As the muezzin's call to prayer cuts through the muggy air hanging over the Pakistani capital, a black sedan glides to a halt a few hundred metres from the mosque.
There is a hurried transaction, something cylindrical wrapped in a newspaper is thrust through the window, some money changes hands and the car glides away.
Just another sale for a local bootlegger in neighbourhood in the heart of Islamabad.
Even though the sale of liquor is banned in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, there is no stopping the sales though the length and breadth of the country.
Bootleggers operate from homes in posh localities and their neighbours too never seem to mind the transactions.
The sales peak during weekends, when it is not unusual to spot women driving up to buy liquor and crates of beer.
Bootleggers, more often than not, hail from the majority Muslim community.
"Saare Kalma-padhne waale Musalmaan hain (they are all practicing Muslims)," a taxi driver said.
Pakistan was officially declared "dry" in 1977.
Under the law, alcohol can't be drunk by 97 per cent of the country's population.
The lone brewery in the country, Murree Brewery, caters to the remaining three per cent, comprising Christians, Hindus and Parsis.
Besides bootleggers, some of the well-heeled depend on friends in the diplomatic circuit.
The late Minoo Bhandara, whose family owns and operates the Murree Brewery, once remarked, "I think 99 per cent of my customers are Muslims. Just not very openly of course."
Liquor is even served at some Muslim weddings, unlike India.
"We only serve liquor at weddings," revealed a middle-class Muslim Punjabi who works in the IT sector.
According to Nadeem F Paracha, a senior columnist, before a ban on the public sale of alcohol was imposed in Pakistan in April 1977, various foreign whisky and beer brands were available in bars, liquor shops and clubs in the main urban areas.
"Murree Brewery started to advertise its beer in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Hoardings and billboards carrying images of Murree Beer went up, mostly in Karachi, with the biggest being a neon sign put on top of a six-storied building in Karachi's Lucky Star area," Paracha wrote.
"This sign was also stoned and damaged by a passing procession of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami supporters during the 1970 election campaign," he noted adding," ever since the ban on alcohol, liquor smugglers and dealers have been turning a profit with contraband alcohol.