We continue to lose innocent people to the monsters on their bikes.
KARACHI: We live in horrifying dark times, where nothing is sacred anymore — religion, property, security, especially human life. You would think being the smartest of all beings and the most conscious of all creations we would have fared better for ourselves. But day in and day out we hear the news about the murder of a cleric who was on his way to pick up his kids from school, of the murder of a doctor who had come back to the country to help those in need, of a young man shot dead in a crossfire between two gangs and we mourn for the departed and look away.
The most recent of these losses that truly touched me was the death of a student who belonged to my university. His name was Adee Siddiqui and he was on his way to pick his father from work. He was 19-year-old and a first-year student in the Statistics Department at the University of Karachi. The thing is I do not know him, I had never seen him before his picture was published in this newspaper and had no idea that he existed. He might have attended the carnival three days ago unaware of the impending doom, he might have visited Prem Gali to eat some tiny samosas just because he felt like it and he might have just lounged around, not worrying about a thing in the world because he was young and vibrant. But he gets to do none of these things again. There will be no lounging around or carnivals or cheap food because he is gone. And those who are to be blamed roam around freely on their motorbikes, possibly racing their frustrations out at Devils Point or looking for new people to rob.
We continue to lose innocent people to the monsters on their bikes. The only question that sticks to me, among all this carnage and madness, is why should they live when innocent people die? Why should they get to enjoy their loot and go home to their families after they have wiped out the light in someone else’s life? I know for sure that God isn’t unfair. Not in the next world, and not in this. Then it leaves us. Us as humans — as compassionate and tolerant beings but if we can’t be that; the greater question exists — who exactly are we?
Zehra Saadia Saiyed
Published in The Express Tribune, September 17th, 2014.
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