Untimely death: A five-year-old terror didn’t spare

Shahjehan was accompanying his parents to collect the family’s share of Benazir Income Support Programme

PESHAWAR/ JAMRUD:

When the cold mist of January settled along with the smoke of the fire caused by a suicide bombing, rescuers found a five-year-old whose fist was clenched with a Rs10 currency note in it.

Shahjehan was accompanying his parents, who were on the way to collect the family’s share of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) fund from an ATM in Peshawar. His parents were also killed in the very same blast. “Shah Faisal, 28, was a daily wager and hardly earned Rs300 a day but was an honest and hardworking man,” former agency councillor Hashim Khan told The Express Tribune, adding that the three were identified on the spot and the bodies were shifted to the Sur Dhand area by rescuers. Family members said his wife was 25 years old.

“The three left the village early in the morning to collect money as the couple was carrying BISP cards as well as their computerised national identity cards for security check,” Ilyas Khan, a resident of Khyber Agency, said while digging the grave for the three. He added people travelling from Bara tehsil to Peshawar change vehicles at Karkhano Market since the vehicles carrying passengers from Bara do not go further. He added the three were about to embark a Peshawar-bound vehicle when the bomber struck. “Besides the three, around six other persons who died on the spot along with the injured persons were shifted to the Hayatabad Medical Complex.”

A journalist from Fata, Mahboob Shah Afridi, was also killed in the attack, dealing a blow to not only his family but also to journalism, a field he was very active in.

Among the unfortunates

Mahboob Shah is the 15th journalist from Fata and second in Khyber Agency to fall victim to terrorism, Tribal Union of Journalists (TUJ) President Sher Khan Afridi told The Express Tribune. He added that the TUJ has announced seven-day mourning and directed all of its members to arrange protest meetings.

Mahboob Shah belonged to Qambarkhel clan of Afridi tribe from Bara.  He was considered an active journalist, not only from Khyber Agency but in all the tribal areas.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2016.