“He was riding next to me. He had short, curly hair. He didn’t look over 20.” The people who look at the skull recoil from the blackened face. It is as if the insult fell back on him.
Some people say a man on a motorcycle was following a bus of mourners for at least half an hour. “He was wearing a black helmet. If I hadn’t turned a few minutes ago I would’ve been injured too.”
Everything was fine in the morning. The main mourning procession was packed. Everyone was suspicious. But nothing happened. Grandmothers. Sabeels. The first time your child touches Zuljinah. Hours later...
“Please report that our men died to prevent a huge tragedy.” The police officer sits in a van where rescue workers of the Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation and Al Mustafa Welfare Society deposit parts of what were people a few minutes earlier. It feels disrespectful to pick up a slippery handful. But you have to do it. It would be worse to leave it there.
“I’ve collected tens of these body parts. We got here less than 15 minutes after the blast happened. We couldn’t see anything because of the smoke billowing in the air. The injured people were in terrible condition.”
Shattered glass seems to break almost beautifully to carpet the ground. When you look up, the wide mouths of their windows gape at you. “It felt like the earth had collapsed.”
People often sit on the pink bench on the grass while waiting to go to hospital nearby. Children play on the grass.
“It looked like a repeat of the attack last Chehlum when the buses carrying mourners were targeted as they were going to the procession.”
Hands hold other hands. The men don’t know each other except for the fact that they are in uniform and they must form a ring around the crime scene. “This is our job.”
They try to pick up whatever looks like evidence. A police sign looks like a piece of paper that has been crumpled and then unfolded. “We’ve been saved from a huge tragedy.” ASIP Muhammad Mushtaq. Head Constable Dil Faraz. Police Constable Muhammad Imran. Hafiz Muhammad Kashif.
Dr Khalid Iqbal uses a clammy hand to wipe away cold sweat. “We found pieces of flesh even on the rooftop [of the clinic]. I’ve been here since 1985 and nothing like this has ever happened.” The patient fell off the bed when it exploded.
Two children, Saud and Sewa, were first taken to Sindh Government Hospital, Saudabad and then to Jinnah hospital. “I saw the damaged police mobile in one corner, but didn’t see any bus from the mourning procession or any damaged motorcycle.”
The list of injured people goes up: ASIP Manzoor Ahmed of Saudabad, 50, Muhammad Samad, 35, Syed Shahzad Hussain, 45, Ali Hassan, 30, Imran, 25, Saud, Sewa, Yasir, 17, Mubashshir, 13, and 45-year-old Moeena.
“Labaik! Ya Hussain! Labaik!”
With additional reporting by Salman Siddiqui, Irfan Aligi and Faraz Khan.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 26th, 2011.
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