Peshawar bleeds dry - 16th December, 2014

16^th December, 2014 has turned out to be the worst possible ending of the year 2014 with 130 people killed, out of which 120 were children and more than 150 injured.

It all began on the morning of 16^th December, 2014, when six to eight militants entered the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar and opened gunfire and blasted bombs, killing anyone who came in their way. The counts started from 7 children dying to the martyrdom of 130 people, within a few hours, at the hands of these terrorists. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the dreadful massacre.

Twitter and Facebook was full of concerned youngsters and adults when the death count was increasing; people who were not even related to the deceased or the injured were just as worried for the safety of the children of the nation, the children of Peshawar. Silent prayers were on the lips of every Pakistani today. Every Pakistani was waiting for it all to end, everyone was hoping to wake up from this horrible nightmare to realize it wasn’t true. All citizens of our beloved Pakistan were united, with eyed glued to their televisions, praying, and hoping against hope, because there wasn’t much else they could do to help.

I watched the parents and relatives of the dead, running about frantically in search of their loved ones. Mothers were fainting, bursting into terrifying wails on hearing the news of their children being brought back from school in a coffin. Fathers were torn apart after being informed that they would have to organize a funeral of their child. Brothers and sisters of the deceased could not imagine that they would now have to live a life without their siblings.

I watched the bloody bodies of the injured being rushed to the hospital on my TV. I saw 130 coffins being prepared for their respective funerals. I saw the coffins with the tiny bodies of the children in it, being carried by fathers, brothers, relatives and volunteers. I watched little kids being rescued by the Pakistan Army and running to their parents, with tears streaming down their face. Every channel I turned to, I saw two things: chaos and fear.

It’s a feeling so terrifying that it cannot be explained in words – the bewildering feeling of thinking what makes the terrorists do something so barbaric, horrendous and inhumane so as to kill children, little innocent children, who had done nothing wrong except for waking up and going to school? What makes them turn into such cruel and vicious creatures who kill 130 people and believe that they have successfully achieved their Heaven? What makes them believe that taking revenge because of the Zarb-e-Azb operation, by taking the lives of children could somehow be justified? But I wonder why I even ask these questions when I know the terrorists have no remorse or guilt, that they have died at the hands of the Pakistan Army but their fellow terrorists are probably dancing around in glee at the “success” of the operation.

A statement by the spokesperson of the TTP was released in which he said – “It’s a revenge attack for the army offensive in North Waziristan.” They were so intent on hurting the Army officials in every way possible that they entered one room and just asked the children inside to raise their hands if their fathers were in the Army. All the kids who did were shot point blank. Such is the barbarism of these animalistic Taliban. Even animalistic sounds like an unreasonable word to justify them, because even animals take care of their young.

I heard a statement of one of the elder students who survived. He said – “the terrorist entered our room and told us to recite the kalma.” Why did he order them to recite it? Because he wanted to kill them as a Muslim. Another statement of a father of a martyred child gave me chills down my spine. He said – “my son went to school in a uniform, and he came back in a kafan.” Another father said – “My child has not wanted to go to school today, oh how I wish I had listened to him”.

The fact of the matter is this – 130 people have died today (141 as of the latest count), over a 100 people have been injured, but these are just statistics for us now. We do not mourn human lives anymore. We do not have sympathy anymore. We do not feel the pain anymore. We feel horrified today, but by tomorrow we will have forgotten and we will have moved on to something else to cry about.

The government has announced a 3-day mourning for the lives lost. Did they give any thought to the mother whose whole life will not be spent in mourning? Did they give any thought on the emptiness of the houses of the families of the deceased? Did they give any thought to the children who will now be scared of going to school to achieve education? Did they give a thought to the stress disorders that will haunt the surviving children and their families, and all of Pakistan for the rest of their lives?

Political leaders have “condemned” the attack. They have demanded an investigation, and they have asked their officials to increase the securities of school. But does it make any difference? What use is the security, now that so many children have lost their lives? What use is the security to the dead children now? What use is the condemnation which is just a façade to show to the nation? What use is the investigation which will be left in the middle of nowhere?

Today is truly a black day. Today is truly a day of mourning. Today is truly a day when the nation lost their own children, their own future, and their own next generation. No words said can be meaningful enough to lessen the excruciating pain of this incident. But I have a prayer – that may God take His revenge. May God bless the martyrs. May God bless the affected families. May God burn the terrorists in hell. And may God make Pakistan, the Land of the Pure – pure from evil, pure from massacres and pure from terrorists. May God save Pakistan. 

Blasphemy Law: A Blasphemy In Itself

A couple of weeks ago, social media burst with the news of a video of Junaid Jamshed where he insulted the wife (Hazrat Ayesha) of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). In this video, Junaid Jamshed insulted Hazrat Ayesha, trying to prove a point about how women are flawed and defected.

As soon as the video went viral and people started hurling abuses at him for giving such insulting remarks to the wife of the most revered Prophet in Islam, Jamshed made a video, apologizing for his remarks, and claimed that he is a flawed human, and that since he gives lectures thrice a day, a mistake of this caliber was bound to happen. The video captures him putting his hands in front of people, crying, and begging them to forgive him for committing such a horrifying mistake.

While, most of the people believed Jamshed’s apology and forgave him for the video, I believe otherwise. I believe that he does not get to make such a horrendous mistake and then get away with it just by making a video, with tears streaming down his face. I will not even talk about whether he bothered to ask forgiveness from Allah, because that is a matter which will remain between the two of them. However, does him being a popular figure mean that he is exempt from all the sins he commits, just by making a video? Why then were the other accused persons not allowed a chance to spare a few minutes and make a similar video? Why was Asia bibi imprisoned and not given a chance to defend herself? All the accused would have been either alive or free, living their life normally instead of rotting in jail for Section 295-C which claims: Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.

This does not in any way mean that I support the blasphemy case that has been filed against Jamshed. He has lowered the status of women in Islam, even though they are given a much higher status. He tends to degrade them instead of dignifying them. However, all of that aside, my question is this – why is the blasphemy law not equal for everyone? Why are people defending Jamshed, and where were they when all the others were being accused and killed for blasphemy? Why were those perpetrators never caught?

Jamshed has been known to flee Pakistan to United Kingdom soon after the blasphemous video went viral. No one will admit this but everyone knows that he is not coming back anytime soon, not until this case is closed, not until his own fellow citizens forgive him, and most importantly, not until everyone forgets about this and finds somebody else to blame everything on. It does make me think that he is lucky he has the money and resources to fly away to another country, while Asia bibi, who was also accused of blasphemy and was arrested and imprisoned, had nowhere to escape to.

The blasphemy laws, giving the right in the hands of man, to hand out a death sentence or a life imprisonment penalty, have given liberty to many a people to accuse their enemies of blasphemy, thereby allowing them to punish them for crimes they might not even have committed. While our country is called the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, these laws are in no way Islamic and they need to be removed if the citizens of Pakistan are to live their life in peace. 

All apologies

Dear person with the bad eye,

I apologize for my rude behavior. I should not have stared at you so blatantly for having a bad eye. I should not have stared at you because you were different. It wasn’t your fault that you were born with it. You did not ask to be this different. I’m sure you must have had a difficult time going about, with people awkwardly looking at your eye, just like I did.

You were so polite, helping me buy the Converse I had come to buy. You even went out of your way to give me a 10% discount. You even told me I could replace my Converse if I didn’t find them too comfortable. You told me to come back soon for the new stock. You told me to have a nice day. Basically, you were nothing short of a perfect gentleman.

But I kept staring at your eye. While on one hand, I was trying my level best to pretend you were just as normal as I was, on the other hand, I couldn’t stop thanking God it was you and not me. I felt ashamed of myself for ostracizing you from my definition of normal but I couldn’t help it and I want to apologize to you for that.

I’m sure you must have met a lot of people in your life who mocked you or jeered at you because of your eye. You must have experienced people cringing at you when they see your face. You must have faced rejection while making friends, while applying for jobs, while just trying to live your life as normally as you possibly could. And I apologize for that. You see, us, normal people, we have a disability too, of the mental kind. We just can’t accept people who have physical disabilities. We can’t “hang out” with people who have a defect of any sort, because some time or the other, we end up letting them know we think they’re abnormal, they’re peculiar, they’re weird, that they’re just not like us.

All I want to say is a sorry and a thank you. A sorry for being so rude, for making you feel like you weren’t, when actually you are more normal than most of us “normal” beings. A thank you for being kind and polite even though I was technically very rude to you. I don’t have much to say because I am not able to express my feelings into words but in the words of Nirvana:

What else should I write
I don’t have the right
What else should I be
All apologies

Sincerely,

Me.

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.

I am an Ahmadi and I love Pakistan

No matter how much I love Pakistan, it is not the place for me to be right now. No matter how much I say I love it, I will always be labelled a traitor in the place I call home. No matter how much I sacrifice for my country, my fellow citizens will always look at me with contempt and hatred. No matter how patriotic I am, I will be punished.. for being me.

I am an Ahmadi. I believe in the Oneness of Allah. I pray 5 times a day. I recite the Holy Quran. I fast during the month of Ramazan. I wish to go and perform Hajj one day. Then why must my religion make me out to be a traitor? Why must my faith decide that I should be murdered? Why must my belief make me so unworthy that even my own country, my homeland, fails to own me anymore?

I was born in and have lived all my life in Pakistan. Despite all the economic and social issues, I have loved Pakistan deeply and have never been able to imagine a life in any other country. Why then has my love for my country been reciprocated with hate? If I have never done anything bad for my country, why has it passed out a death sentence for me?

There are so many questions in my mind. I have been asking them from people who hate “my kind”, religious and non-religious people, and I have never been able to get a proper answer. The main question is this – who gave people in power the right to act like God? I know that the God I know does not give His rights to anyone. There is only One God and there always will be One. And He does not give anyone rights to kill innocent people, to massacre them, to murder them, to desecrate their graves, to makes their lives a living hell.

These people who pretend to take God’s place, they don’t know how Merciful He is, how Compassionate He is, how Gracious He is. Why then do they make Him out to be a God who punishes people for living in peace and for practicing their religion? Why do these people drag my beautiful God’s name when they are killing people like us, people who are not worthy of living in their eyes, minorities like the Shias, Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus, Hazaras and a hundred others that live in this country, fearing death with each passing second? If they did not deserve to live, why did God create them in the first place?

The flag of Pakistan has two colors – green and white. The green represents the majority, and the white represents the minority. I don’t remember ever reading that the minorities were not to be given equal status, I was never told that minorities were to be looked down upon, or killed, or shot, or raped, or kidnapped, or tortured, or humiliated. I was never told that minorities were not the “official” citizens of Pakistan. I was never told that living as a minority in Pakistan would mean I, or the million other minorities currently residing in Pakistan, would be somehow on a lower status as compared to the “official” majority of Pakistan.

I am a Pakistani. No one can take that away from me. You can shoot me for loving my country. You can torture me. You can kill me. But you will never be able to snatch away my love for Pakistan and my belief in Ahmadiyyat away from me, no matter how hard you try. You say you are “cleaning” Pakistan from all the traitors, but I say this. It is traitors like you, killing innocent people, who need to be thrown out to disinfect Pakistan. It is your intolerance that needs to be punished. It is your fatwey that need to stop being published. It is you. It is not us. And as time will tell, it never will be. 

What about the common man?

It has been 3 weeks since the Azadi/Inquilaab March started. Thousands of people came out of their homes to march against the current government for their poor governance. They have been living without proper shelter and sanitation for weeks now. Every night is dangerous for them for fear of attack by the police. And if that isn’t enough, there is frequent rainfall, much of which continues throughout the whole night.

It has been 3 weeks. And these people haven’t even THOUGHT about going back to their respective homes. Why? Because they have already experienced worse conditions and for them, this couldn’t get any worse. They don’t have electricity, gas or water. They’re unemployed. It is difficult for them to even provide food twice a day for their families. How worse could it get for them?

Meanwhile, an egoistic war carries on between Imran Khan, Tahir-ul-Qadri and our very own Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif. None of them refuses to back down. None of them refuses to negotiate through talks. At this point, I believe their egos have reached such a high point that maybe they have forgotten about the common man, and just want to win this for the sake of their egos. But what then?

I don’t doubt the honesty of Imran Khan. Regardless of how immaturely he has handled the situation and regardless of how his speech has been a tad bit abusive towards Nawaz Sharif, he still seems to be an honest man. But now, after this egoistic war, it also seems as if his ego has gotten the better of him.

But I rant not for the politicians but for the common man. Who looks after them? Who cares for them? Who provides for their basic needs? They have been sitting in the open air for 3 weeks now, and who knows how long they’re here to stay. Some of them have been beaten up. Some of them have been injured. 3 of the women have even passed away. Did they expect that they would die waiting for this independence that maybe isn’t going to happen? Did they expect they’ll have to sacrifice their lives? I really don’t think so.

I don’t for a second sympathize with the government, because if the protesters were peaceful, they should not have ordered the police to throw tear gas and rubber bullets. Rumors have it that actual bullets were also fired. Blood donors were called from all over Islamabad and Rawalpindi to help the injured, and when they arrived, the police would not let them in. According to some reports, proper treatment was not provided to the injured, and they were being discharged without any medical care. A friend’s mother was also shot when she ran to help a baby girl. There were women in that March, there were so many children. And still the government orders the police to fire bullets.

On the other hand, I don’t sympathize with Tahir-ul-Qadri or Imran Khan either, who make decisions on the spur of the moment, thinking they can win this war and topple the government by their spontaneous decisions, not realizing that lives could be lost and people could be injured. And their supporters follow them blindly, because most of them neither know the first thing about politics nor can they see the pit their politicians might be throwing them into. Yesterday, when people (Tahir-ul-Qadri’s supporters or Imran Khan’s, we still don’t know) marched into the PTV station and allegedly vandalized it, after calling them back and scolding them for doing so, both TuQ and Imran Khan gave statements that these people did not belong to their party. But how can they not? Both leaders have been giving speeches, in which they have been instigating their supporters against the government. Didn’t they realise the people would get violent? These people are, after all, here for their freedom, and the leaders have told them that no freedom comes without struggles and fights. 

I worry. Not for the politicians. Because whatever the outcome may be, they’ll still end up in their mansions with their money and their luxuries. I worry for the common man. I worry for the lives lost. I worry for the injured. I worry that when they return to their homes, and circumstances don’t change, there will be more bloodshed. I worry that when they return to their respective cities, more violence will be incited. I worry that they will realize that they have been used in this power game. I worry that when they realize that, the politicians might have to run for their lives.

This protest should be for the common man and for him only. Egos need to be put aside. Money and power needs to be put aside. And the politics need to start thinking more about the country and its citizens and less about themselves. 

Limit of inhumanity - the Gujranwala incident

It was the night of 27^th July, when an angry mob attacked and burnt five houses, a storage building and several vehicles over alleged blasphemy. The blasphemy was against an Ahmadi young man for putting up a blasphemous image of the Ka’aba on Facebook. He kept on trying to deny it but it was not enough for the angry, inhumane creatures who just wanted revenge for something that never happened in the first place.

Eventually, an angry mob gathered and began protesting and eventually attacked and burnt homes and other property belonging to members of the Ahmadi community. Not only that, when the people inside the houses were trapped, the door locks were filled with elfy to prevent any escape. Windows were broken and petrol was set on fire to cause smoke to suffocate them. The mob was dancing happily on the streets after setting the houses on fire, while the police watched from the sides, doing absolutely nothing to intervene.

Meanwhile, inside the houses, a 55-year old woman, an 8-month old girl, Kainat and a 7-year old, Hira, passed away, unable to fight any longer. A woman miscarried during this incident and was provided medical treatment at Fazl-e-Umar Hospital in Rabwah. Following the violence, all the Ahmadi families fled Gujranwala, with nothing in their hands.

I keep wondering; is there any limit to this inhumane attitude? Will this ever end? I thought the violence had reached its peak 4 years ago on 28^th May, 2010 when 86 Ahmadis were massacred while they were in a mosque for Friday prayers. However, this seems even more inhumane, because a 7-year old girl and an 8-month old girl lost their lives. Why? Because they were Ahmadis. How could an 8-month old girl, who does not even know how to talk properly, have possibly done something so horrendous as to get this fate?

What shocked me even more was how they were celebrating murdering people, and that too, in the name of Allah. When Allah has ordered all mankind to live in harmony, and has ordered all Muslims to make Islam the most peaceful religion to exist, how can these animals kill innocent people and celebrate and dance as if they have been given the news that they’re surely going to Heaven?

When I sit and think about it, it shocks me to the very core. How can people murder innocent people? How can people torture them, burn them, degrade them? How do they not feel any remorse? How do the face of the people who they’ve so brutally murdered, not haunt them for life, in their dreams or otherwise? And then it hits me; they have been born into this chaos of a theory. They have been brought up that way, being taught along the way that killing anyone from another sect, especially Ahmadis, will make them Jannati. And that is why killing does not eat them from inside. Because they believe they are doing the right thing. And it is so saddening. Not only for the innocent victims, but for themselves as well. Because they are just building up the wrath of Allah. Allah is always Just. And He always Watches and Protects, and He always gives Justice in one way or other to the innocent, and always punishes the guilty.

Ahmadis all around the world are so saddened and shocked at the inhumanity and the torturous minds and actions of these so-called Muslims; I can’t even begin to imagine how the people directly affected from this incident would feel like. Especially the mothers who lost their children, the born and the unborn. My heart and my prayers go out to them.

All we can do now is pray. Pray and raise awareness. And help them in whatever small way we can. May Allah be with all Ahmadis and may He punish the guilty for all their actions.