A most remarkable day

In a major development today, no suicide bombing took place anywhere across the country. First reported around noon, this had become major breaking news by late evening. All media outlets began reporting the news extensively in bold, glaring, red flashes. No suicide bombing today! Not a single person killed or maimed. No earth-shattering explosions or rattling exchanges of fire, no bodies blown up or strewn about in pools of blood, no wailing ambulances rushing to choked, panic-filled hospitals, no buildings reduced to heaps of rubble.

This, despite the fact that people had congregated in large numbers in various bazaars and recreation spots and mosques and shrines, not to mention airports and railway and bus stations. All channels beamed live coverage of that: women buying bolts of cloth in crowded markets; devotees bearing garlands, thronging sufi shrines; passengers streaming through busy lorry addas. Even churches and imambargahs and Ahmadiyya places of worship remained safe.

Even in Fata and Balochistan, shockingly, no attacks took place on any checkposts or sensitive installations. All gas pipelines and grid stations remained intact. There were no IED blasts or kidnappings of senior educationists. Even journalists, of all people, were spared. What’s more, no bombs were planted or defused anywhere, nor were any caches of lethal arms and ammunitions discovered. No alleged terrorists plotting diabolical attacks were nabbed anywhere in the country.

But that’s not all. To everyone’s shock, not a single target killing occurred in Karachi, nor were there incidents of indiscriminate firing or angry throngs burning tires or torching buses and shops. No cases of rape or sexual assault occurred across the nation, nor was anyone mugged or hacked or burned to death. Even more astounding, there were no violent rallies by mullahs hollering for blasphemers’ blood, nor did lawyers, for once, shatter the law and assault the police or judges or journalists or fellow lawyers. Likewise, astonishingly, no extrajudicial killings and incidents of police brutality came to light. There were no shutter-down/wheel jam strikes and fascistic shutdowns of entire towns. There wasn’t any sectarian violence, even, or murder edicts. No lynch mobs bludgeoned innocents to death and paraded mauled, bloodied bodies like trophies before cheering crowds.

The media went berserk over these remarkable developments, beaming incessant live coverage late into the night. Journalists swarmed government officials and law-enforcing agencies for explanations. TV anchors hosted heated, salacious debates. A bunch of reporters enthusiastically thrust their mikes at the DIG in a major city, all asking how such a thing could happen. The police officer, despite all his experience, seemed dumbfounded about the causes of all this. He said the police were still looking into the matter, and would do their best to gather all evidence and reach some solid conclusions, soon.

Meanwhile, all chief ministers called emergency law and order meetings late into the night, while the prime minister demanded a report from the interior ministry within 72 hours. The president, on a lengthy trip abroad, issued a statement reassuring the nation that a high-level, thorough investigation would be carried out and all those behind these alarming occurrences would soon be exposed and dealt with. All major political leaders expressed their shock at these developments and demanded urgent, concrete actions from the government.

All in all, it was the most remarkable day in the history of the nation, one that would be remembered by generations to come.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th,  2011.