Moved by an Article in Daily Dawn about the state of affairs in Karachi, I felt like sharing the grief of the people well put by Nusrat Nasarullah in the column I have pasted below. I am shocked to read this and shocked to realize what the political failure has caused to this country and especially its commercial city of karachi! When are we going to realize that the death-trap is knocking right at our door-steps!
My suggestion:- Rid the country of corrupt Army-men, Judicial hypocrites, Politicians and Bureaucrats. Restore the power to people, for God sake, please!
ARTICLE
The way in which we have been exposed to the uncertainties of terrorism and a general vulnerability of unsafe day to day living, it does not surprise that not much conversation has evidently taken place on the fact that a rocket hit a Karachi wedding lawn on Monday night (June 28th). Karachiites appear to have taken it in their stride?
I was in Islamabad that day when this happened, and read the news the next morning. All that was unfolding in Islamabad, with the change of the prime minister, and all the speculation and contemplation that was going on, this rocket incident figured no where. It was viewed as another instance of “lawlessness” and “terrorism” in a city that remains a very high priority in the law and order agenda of the country.
But in Karachi, for us, it was something new. In a city seized by fears of sorts, this was a new kind of scare, a new apprehension, and an unconventional sort of activity that made, and still makes citizens quietly wonder whether this can be controlled. Whether this is the new way in which terrorists will strike. Mind boggles at the thought of rockets flying around, like on Monday night, in a city as dense and burdened with people and the damage it may cause to life and property.
The rocket was fired on Monday from a ground-launcher in Hijrat Colony, near the PIDC House bridge and landed at the Data Lawn near Guru Mandir. The distance the rocket travelled was eight to ten kilometres. There are other details, but one would like to pause here at just these facts. As a citizen I feel vulnerable when I imagine what would have happened if that rocket had fallen in some populated part of Guru Mandir, or elsewhere.
It is hard to believe that the men behind the rocket were aiming at that empty Data Lawn. That is naive. No one would go along with that argument. It is a rocket that went astray. That is our collective good fortune. And we should thank the Almighty Allah for this.
But is this thanksgiving enough? What else can be done is what we have to ponder about. Admittedly there are rockets being fired in other parts of the country - in Balochistan and NWFP. But, now in Karachi, is this indicative of what lies ahead. A fear overcomes me even as I say this, and I tremble.
Now this was not the first rocket fired in the city. The city’s police chief, Tariq Jamil has been quoted as saying that in 2002 a rocket was fired near the airport area. Yet another, he said had struck the Government College for Commerce and Economics on Dr Ziauddin Ahmad Road some time ago.
It does make one wonder at the obvious VIP presence in this area, where places like the Governor House, the Chief Minister House, Rangers headquarters, leading clubs, five star hotels, and media head offices are located. Also the US Consulate General let me add!
Let us return to another aspect of that Monday night rocket fire. Another “live” rocket was found in Hijrat Colony which was defused by the police. This rocket was 2.5 feet long and was found in a pushcart, and the launcher was on the ground, beside the rocket. Some newspapers carried photographs of this and the damage caused in the marriage lawn in Guru Mandir.
Most citizens have imagined what would have happened to them were they to be at the spot, where the rocket hit. And what of that Guru Mandir area, residential and commercial both? Bear in mind that it is in Guru Mandir and adjoining areas that there have been those incidents: suicidal bombing in the Imambargah Ali Reza, and the assassination of Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai and Munawar Suhrawardy.
A Dawn story has said that a “jehadi outfit” was being suspected by the local police to be involved in the rocket attack, with the rocket described as a short range, surface to surface ballistic missile of eight to 12 km range. Is this what the city has begun having as terrorism grows, and citizens fears rise? Another report has said that the police have come to know that a known militant group has plans to enable women suicide bombers attack Imambargahs.
See the manner in which our lives are changing and so is the face of the city. And what should one say of the face of the city that comes through the large number of huge billboards and hoardings that are up in the city? Commercial success?
Let me quote here what the writer Boris Pasternak has said about fear. He says that “fear has the largest eyes of all”. If applied to the city even in what are regarded as places of entertainment and recreation in this congested city, there are rampant fears. One is not just referring to the fear that most people have when they go to the beach at this time of the year. Summer time, and vacation time, and people go to the Hawkes Bay and Sandspit beaches.
Careless unsuspecting individuals get drowned, and from the look of things this year, it seems that neither has anything worthwhile been done to educate the people, nor have they themselves realised the folly of going deep, or risking the waves. No effort to manage the problem, really.
And will there be any lessons learnt from the tragedy that took place last Sunday (June 25th) at the Alladin Park on Rashid Minhas Road. This is not the first time this place has been in the news. A 13-year-old boy, Mohsin Khan, a student of class 7th, was crushed to death after he fell from a ferris wheel at this amusement park.
The boy’s mother reportedly said that “my son was about to sit in the wheel, when the operator started it, Mohsin lost his balance and was crushed under a part of the huge wheel”. The details of what happened have been reported in the press, and the amusement park was also closed down by the City Nazim Naimatullah Khan, and inquiries are underway. A police case has reportedly been registered. Many questions come to the mind as one read the little boy’s tragic story.
That the Alladin amusement park had no ambulance service nor did it make it available from elsewhere. One taxi after another was called in and by the time the boy reached the Liaquat National Hospital he was declared dead. It is reported that an hour was lost after the boy sustained the first injury. It is also reported that it was after the general public intervened that the wheel under which Mohsin was trapped came to a halt. But it was too late.
There is much to be shocked about in the death of this 13-year-old Mohsin Khan whose parents also addressed a press conference at the Karachi Press Club and held the management of the park responsible for the death. One of the points they stressed was that the oxygen cylinder that was brought by the staff was “empty”. In a society given to mismanagement and inefficiency it is believable, and needs to be looked into.
What also needs to be looked into is not just this case where alittle boy lost his life. Disturbing thoughts also go out to the other such amusement parks in the city where at times the appearance is very shabby and seems faulty.This is a city that dangerous buildings that continue to be inhabited, and this is a city where ill-maintained public and private vehicles, big and small run on the city’s roads, adding to the horrors and perils that already exist. It is an attitude thing, this unwillingness and inability to want to maintain equipment, gadgets, vehicles etc.
I have spoken of fear and uncertainty that dwell in a Karachiite’s heart and with that in mind let me tell, you a friend of mine highlighted last night. The fear of getting robbed at gunpoint at traffic signals. It is happening and remains too small to be reported. Let me tell you what he said: a motorist was waiting at the PECHS Nursery traffic signal, when two men got into his car, one in front and the other onto the back seat of his Khyber. They robbed him of his wallet, mobile phone, and cash. They saw his credit card, took him to an ATM and withdrew cash and then let him to go, with his car. This ATM was working!