LAHORE: This Eid was very lonely. The fact is that every day is heart-wrenching for me, so Eid is no different. And this is because our mother, the nucleus of our family, is no longer with us.
Our mother is a martyr. She was shot dead while seated in her car. They came with guns and though she gave them all her jewellery and valuables, they shot her anyway. She was killed on November 15, 2011, in Karachi. My mother was an excellent partner to our father, a great mother to her three sons and one daughter, a great older sister to her siblings, a responsible and loving daughter to her parents and a kind person.
It has been over nine months since she was killed but so far, we have yet to receive any justice. In Pakistan there is no justice, whether one is poor or rich. In this Islamic Republic no one is safe.
I hear of our brothers, Hindus and Christians, being killed and persecuted, but Muslims here are no different, they aren’t safe either. Our leaders are busy with unimportant issues. Does anyone think that people in our situation are optimistic about the future? How can one be hopeful, when one’s life and liberty are under attack every day? And all this is not the doing of the West, it is our fault and we can’t blame India, America or anyone else.
People tell me to be patient and wait for the Day of Judgement, but my patience has run out — I want justice today! Now, I know how people whose loved ones die in Karachi feel daily. Dozens of people die every day in Pakistan in such incidents and no one cares. Life has no value here.
Whether it’s Imran Khan, Nawaz Sharif, Asif Ali Zardari, Altaf Hussain or any of the mullahs, no one cares for this country. When will these people realise that when they are dead and gone, all that they will have left behind is a legacy of corruption and selfishness. There has to be an end to this. I am a Western-educated, moderate and well-off Pakistani, but I don’t have any faith in the justice system here. If I had a chance I would shoot my mother’s killers myself. I had never imagined that I would think of doing such a thing. This is the level of moral degradation in this country.
Our happiness was taken away by some Pakistanis so easily. And so, whether it is August 14 or Eid, I feel no love for this country or its people. We never thought that something like this would happen to us, but it did. Thank God for our father: he is a strong person and his perseverance in this difficult time has kept us all sane.
But the sad thing is that this tragedy can happen to anyone. One has to be careful. It’s everyone for themselves. Save yourselves!
Fawwad Shafi
Published in The Express Tribune, August 27th, 2012.
