Lately no news coming out of Pakistan seem to be good news. This afternoon I started writing about Benazir’s return in lighter words focusing on hilarious statements coming out of our politicians on her return and then this horrific news of scores of people dead started coming in. My lighter mood vanished totally and now I am left wihout words and more questions like, Why? Who? what now? etc.
The headline news on CNN reads as follows right now:
An explosion near the motorcade of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto killed at least 110 people and injured 200 more, officials say. Bhutto, returning after years in exile, reportedly was unhurt.
While we are glad that she remained safe, our sincere prayers are with those innocents who lost their lives.
zabt laazim hai magar dukh hai qayamat ka
zalim ab ke bhi na roay ga to mar jaaye ga
Those ppl who are blaming establishment instead of Taliban are islamist. They can not accept that their righteous fellows have a problem.
Jyoti,
You’re right, she was secured and there was nothing to fret over. But no one can imagine that Sick Minds target the innocents as we all know it usually back fired but I guess we give them more credit than they deserves.
My office is at Baloch Colony flyover thats very near to where incident took place n I was there at that time at my office saw the whole thing n became so depressed that I was abt to weep in anger. God show us the right path.
I switched on the the tv this morning and was stunned to see the gruesome news of Karachi blasts. May God give peace to the victims’ soul and courage to their families to bear this tragic loss. I don’t know who is at fault for this carnage. But one thing I do feel, when Ms Bhutto knew there was threat to her life, what was the need to continue her road show for 10 hours? The leader was well protected for any eventuallity, but didn’t she give one single thought to the saftey of aam janataa dancing in her welcome?
I am sitting at home and watching BB’s live press conference and I swear, she does not have any regret, sadness on her face for the people who died yesterday and she is trying to cash the incident big time. ..
Wohee laashoon kee siyaasat..
What a tragic loss of lives.
You know, as much as I should know better, I can’t help but get pulled in by the words of these politicians, their sorcery. They say things with such conviction about helping “gharib awaam” and true Islam, I wish I wouldn’t believe these people. But I have hope in BB, perhaps perhaps perhaps?
Raza,
Like you I’m too disgusted why so called elite and educated class hate PPP this much that they can’t even remain decent at the loss of innocent lives. Just imagine IF it was someone else say Nawaz Sharif or Altaf Hussain then the reaction would be complete opposite. I hope it doesn’t had to do anything with Benazir being a woman and leader of the Poor man’s party.
PS. Things at KMB is much worse.
I am not a supporter of Musharraf, I’m not a supporter of Benazir and certainly I’m not a supporter of Taliban, but I do relate with the common men and women of my country (even if I sometimes shake my head on the choices they make). And it pains me to see that once again it is us - the common folk - that have to pay the massive price (sacrifice of life, of the sense of security of the city, of millions of rupees in economic losses and much more) for the political games of the powers to be.
I had covered the sad events live for Karachi Metroblog and later reflected on it on my own blog as well, but it still hasn’t sunk in. My mind keeps wondering, why? Why must we think so little of the sanctity of human life so as to so brutally and so audaciously destroy it without any sensitivity for some secondary political gain or pseudo-religious agenda?
I really don’t know who was behind this, but what disturbs me the most is the psychology that could allow this to happen in the first place and the psychology that allows us -the supposedly educated elite who have access to the internet- to be so insensitive to the gravity of this situation so as to indulge in a name-calling and blame-casting game that I would normally associate with this country’s politicians.
Barring a few of them even they have (at least so far) refrained from outrightly indulging in such games. I always thought we were better then them. This is quite a dent to my self esteem in that way. It is disturbing to see some of the comments, both here as well on other posts on the theme on the Karachi Metroblog.
I’m beginning to feel shame in my own capacity as a human being, that any other fellow human being, can all call him or her self a human being, and a)conceive something inhumane like this and b)analyze it later on with such distaste and insensitivity. Sigh.