Something caught my eye while surfing the net. The source is The Times, UK. Could it be a journalistic approach to even-handed journalism or a poor attempt at tarnishing a hero’s image?
A nation divided: the hero who saved cricketers had ‘jihadi martyr’ brother
Pakistan is desperate for heroes and yesterday it found one in Mehar Mohammed Khalil, the bus driver whose quick thinking saved Sri Lanka’s cricket team and probably averted the biggest massacre of international sports stars since the 1972 Munich Olympics.
As the players pledged their eternal gratitude, one day after they were attacked by militants in Lahore, Pakistanis embraced Mr Khalil as a symbol of everything that they wished their country stood for: courage, hospitality, modesty and, of course, a love of cricket.
In many ways, he is a typical Pakistani. He lives with his parents, two brothers and their families in a small house that his grandfather built in an alleyway in Lahore’s congested Yat-eem Khana district.
After 22 years driving for the New Diamond travel agency, Mr Khalil, 38, earns 15,000 rupees (£132) a month, and spends much of it on educating his two sons and two daughters. He could be a poster boy for the secular, moderate face of Pakistan.
However, he is also typical in other ways that reflect the contradictions that exist in Pakistani identity: in 1995 his younger brother, Shakil, was killed fighting for a jihadist militant group in Indian–controlled Kashmir.
He is also a supporter of Jamaat-e-Islami – a legal Islamist political party that wants to impose Sharia across Pakistan and to use the army to kick India out of Kashmir.
“This attack would never have happened under Jamaat,” he told The Times, as he received a stream of wellwishers at home and posed for photographs with the Sri Lankan team shirt he was given by the grateful players.
None of this detracts from his heroics on Tuesday, when a dozen gunmen ambushed his bus as he was driving the Sri Lankan team to the Gaddafi Stadium for the second Test against Pakistan.
Over tea and biscuits, with neigh-bours hanging on to every word, he described hearing shooting on his left and seeing one gunman shoot dead a police outrider in front, while two more gunmen opened fire from the right. A fourth militant fired a rocket, which missed the bus, another threw a grenade, which did not detonate, then yet another stepped out of a white car in front and opened fire with a Kalashnikov, he said.
At that point, with the players screaming “Go! Go! Go!”, he pressed his foot on the accelerator and careered through the barrier of the stadium entrance to get the team to safety. “I felt that the Sri Lankan team were the guests of our country and it was a matter of honour,” he explained.
“That was the only thought in my mind. I don’t know if I’m a hero or not but I did it for my country.”
His country repaid him yesterday with a 500,000 rupee reward.
Like most Pakistanis, he condemned the attackers for destroying Pakistan’s international reputation as a sporting venue. “It’s my sincere wish that other countries’ teams will continue to come here,” he said.
But like most Pakistanis, he was also unwilling to consider the possibility that the attackers were home-grown, and appeared convinced that they were, in fact, from India.
“Their complexions were Indian-type,” he said. “They were definitely not Pakistani. Foreign forces are involved in this.” As he spoke, a relative whisked away a photograph of his dead brother, with a Kalashnikov rifle over his shoulder, a camouflage cap on his head and a radio in one hand.
Printed in Urdu across the photograph were the words “Mujahid martyred in Kashmir. Died in Udampur, India, 25 August 1995. Codename Abdullah.”
What the papers said
“International cricket is no longer possible in Pakistan; therefore we should stop accusing foreign teams of discriminating against Pakistan vis-à-vis India. The question here is of the survival of Pakistan, not of cricket.” The Daily Times: ‘Al-Qaeda strikes in Lahore’
“Those who carped at [the] Australian refusal to tour here due to security concerns now have their comeuppance. Nobody is going to tour here for a very long time, be they cricketers, hockey players or players of tiddlywinks,” The News: ‘Cricket, the requiem’
“The Liberty tragedy reflects a crisis of governance in Pakistan in general and Punjab in particular, a breakdown of law and order providing a golden opportunity to terrorists to hit at will . . . the Liberty attackers must be hunted and captured dead or alive” The Nation: ‘A fatal blow to the country’s image’
**Link: A nation divided: the hero who saved cricketers had ‘jihadi martyr’ brother - Times Online
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