A heart-breaking trip into the past

I first visited Quetta in 1967 to attend a course at the School of Infantry and Tactics in 1967 and then was posted in the School in 1970, and served there and in my battalion that had moved there by the time I was finishing my instructional tour of duty, for a total of four years and some months.

In the field (please recall that we were there at the height of the ’70s insurgency), we served in Chaman, Kalat and Khuzdar, where we spent the most time with a Company each at Nal, Jebri and Mashkai, and Battalion HQs with Alpha and HQs Company at Khuzdar. 70 Brigade HQs, commanded by Brig (later Lt Gen) Fazal-e-Haq was at Khuzdar too with our lone L-19 piloted in turn by my course-mates Javed Khan of Rehana and Khurshid of Karachi. Point to note: the most notable “action” we saw in Khuzdar was the rescue of Sardar Doda Khan Zarakzai from “miscreants”, an “action” that turned out to be a damp squib, commanded by yours truly with a Company-plus, including our Regimental Medical Officer (RMO) — popularly known as “doctor”.

But by golly, was it tough going: our Brigade Major, who was a gunner, took a flight by the L-19 and in the briefing said it would take us four hours to get there, an hour extricating the Sardar, and four back. All a neat nine hours. Starting at Khuzdar at 2am, we were to arrive at the debussing point at 4am and then take it from there.

We debussed at 4.10 and forming up and sending scouting/picket parties ahead, started our march. After one of the hardest, toughest walks I have been on, we got to within a mile of the village where Sardar Doda Khan was holed up, at 1.30pm, four and half hours behind schedule, thank you very much! However, while I was setting up our battalion mortars in case of need, we saw several white flags waving furiously from behind walls, which were still almost a mile and a bit away.

We waited at the ready for the flag-wavers to approach, who gave us the Sardar’s good wishes and bade us welcome. They had also brought along donkeys and camels to carry our heavy equipment as a gesture of hospitality, which we refused, and after inspecting the men and asking them to get out their food and eat it, were then led into a mud-walled compound (oh, there’s that dreaded word again!) in which there was a spacious mud-walled house on the floors of which were laid carpets and along the sides, colourful bolster cushions.

We were welcomed with the customary Baloch hospitality by the Sardar, who lay on one of the cushions, his arm in a sling. Our RMO, after inspecting the wound, told us that the sten-gun bullet went right through the Sardar’s arm between the radius and the ulna, damaging neither. There was hardly any loss of blood but that we should get him to hospital asap.

I started to get up to give instructions to the men to get ready and asked the Sardar to ready himself to move as it was already 2.30pm on a winter’s evening and would soon be dark when we would need to send up pickets along our route. “Major Sahib,” the Sardar says, “Yeh pahar kissi kay baap kay hein? Yeh hamaray pahar hein; koi picket-wicket ki zaroorat nahin. Bethein, aap kay liey aur aap kay jawanon kay lie sajji ban rahi hai,” saying which he issued a series of authoritative commands and lo, 10 minutes later, steaming dishes of rice and sajji and roti were being placed before us.

After we had all gorged — the jawans eating two lunches — we set off, the Sardar on his camel surrounded by his bodyguard and we marching along as best we could. We reached our embussing point at one in the morning and found the Brigade Commander waiting for us along with our CO.

That was the operational side of things: Quetta was a happening place in the 70s with the two most important schools of instruction — the vastly more advanced Command and Staff College and the SI and T. There were many Allied officers, Australian, Iranian, Arab, American and British at the Staff College, sometimes two from the same country.

We used to have Sunday breakfast rides where the officers would ride their horses over the hills towards Hanna Lake and around it to the apple orchards where the mess detachments and the ladies had already got there by transport and have picnics. This was just to fill my reader in on what I knew of Quetta in the 70s and how I saw it just five days ago as part of an Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) team led by the inimitable Asma Jahangir to take stock of the situation after the horrific attacks on the women’s university bus and the Bolan Medical Complex.

The delegation included famous journalist Ghazi Salahuddin, who needs no introduction from me; Nazish Brohi, a researcher, who has done much work on Balochistan, its tribes and mores, and on Afghanistan and Iraq; the diligent Rafia Asim, who works as a researcher at the HRCP, and yours truly.

What I saw in Balochistan broke my heart into little bits. Roadblocks everywhere — I have to take you back again — when my wife and I, kids of 25 and 20, used to drive home to our hut opposite the Chiltan Market at 11.30pm from the home of good and great friend Munir Afridi (RIP) after a late dinner at his house off Sariab Road.

When there were monthly get-togethers and dinners at the gentle home of the late Mr Kaikobad Ardeshir and Mrs Mehrbano Marker, my senior friend Minoo’s parents, which too lasted well beyond 10.30 and it was safe to drive anywhere in Quetta from there.

And what do you see now? Bullet-proof behemoths with unreadable number plates; darkened windows, Kalashnikov barrels poking their ugly snouts from them; and at least three or four “follow vehicles” with men with faces covered bandit-style, guns pointed at you? Point to note: while civilians — men, women and children — stand in line in the scorching sun being searched, these juggernauts go roaring through.

Next week: Far sadder stuff.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28^th, 2013.

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