Pakistan - where everyone has a license to kill

Welcome to Pakistan. The Land of the Pure. The country known for its tourism and rich culture. The country known for its different cuisines. The country known for its historical place. And very unfortunately, the country known as the place where everyone has a license to kill.

The chaos and turmoil due to terrorism in Pakistan is on a constant rise. Various minorities are openly declared Wajib-ul-Qatal (worthy of killing) on national media. Banners can be seen against different sects instigating people against their existence. Wives, husbands, children are killed over petty issues. Parents, siblings and relatives are shot over property related problems. Suspicion is the cause of many women dying at the hands of their husbands and brothers. The list is endless.

Minorities including Shias, Ahmadis, Christians and Hindus suffer the most. They are publicly declared second-grade citizens. Most of them are not even given their due rights. When they are killed publicly, no news channel speaks for them, some newspapers don't even bother reporting the deaths. Day after day after day of sectarian killing, and no action is being taken. Furthermore, the killers are thrown flowers upon and congratulated for killing a Kafir, encouraging them to kill more people. 

The more people like me write posts trying to create awareness about the value of a human life, the more people are dying every day. I think people have become materialistic and have associated extremism with religion. I believe they have forgotten that once you shoot and eventually kill a person, you can’t really undo it. I believe that once you pull that trigger, once you shove that knife in someone’s abdomen, once you strangle someone’s throat, you can’t rewind time and pretend it never happened. You have to live with it all your life, and it will haunt you throughout the time you have left.

But what baffles me is this – who gave these people the license to kill? I know God didn’t. You just have to read the Quran properly to know that because Islam was and never will be a religion that promotes violence. Then who? And what makes these people believe that killing people on the basis of religion will grant them Heaven? Who’s to say they won’t be eternally damned? Furthermore, what makes the people, who kill people on the basis of property and other petty issues, think they can take this property with them to the other world? Don’t they know a coffin only has place for them and their deeds?

It’s such a common act nowadays. Shoot anyone who doesn’t agree with you. Put someone in their grave if they try and voice their opinion. Bury them if they so much as try to utter a word against you. I wonder if they’ve ever thought about what would happen if they were on the receiving end of that bullet. What would happen to their family if they were stabbed so many times that their bodies would become unrecognizable? Who would support their parents/children if they were to be shot, shoved in a garbage bag and thrown in the sewers?

Blood has been shedding over the smallest of issues nowadays. It’s not time to ponder over one’s actions. Killing people over your own frustrations will not lessen them. Snatching someone away from their family because you don’t believe in their faith will not make you any more righteous, or any closer to God. Spilling blood of your own fellow countryman will not make you love your country more.

No one should be given a license to kill on the basis of beliefs, petty issues, property issues, or a mere difference of opinion. This is how tolerance is learned. This is how harmony will be achieved, by learning to agree to disagree, by acknowledging that people think and believe differently and by realizing that we’re all humans, we all belong to the same country, and at the end of the day, we’re all Pakistanis. We need to stand up for each other, not against each other. After all, this is what the unity in Quaid-e-Azam’s Unity, Faith and Discipline stands for. And that is the only way Pakistan can be saved.