Pashto singer demands assistance for son’s treatment

Yousafzai continued to work for Pukhtun culture even after militants attacked him

PESHAWAR: A senior Pashto singer, Sardar Yousafzai, is struggling to make ends meet as his 11-year-old son fights posterior tumour. The survivor of militant attack in Swat in 2008 has pressed the government to assist in the treatment of his son who has been sick for the past six years.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Yousafzai who has released several music albums in Pashto, said his son is writhing in pain and he does not have the financial resources to afford his treatment. He said the doctors had deemed his son’s illness to be ‘mysterious’ till recently when Zaland could not even walk.



“My son used to cry in pain but no medicines were prescribed and given by the doctors here,” the singer said. “It is only recently that they identified the disease to be tumour which has now spread and is affecting more of his organs.”



He said doctors in the country have said a surgery now needed to be performed and one of Zaland’s legs would be amputated.

“The doctors say that operation is the only way to put my son out of his misery but the chances of saving his leg and curing him here are less than 1%,” Yousafzai added.

He added doctors in Islamabad told him to take his son abroad for treatment.

“They [doctors] told me there were chances that my son could get cured abroad since countries in the West were technologically advanced,” he said.

Yousafzai said his son was in extreme agony and this was a very difficult and stressful time for his family. “I do not have millions of rupees to take him abroad and pay for his treatment.”

Loyalty to music, nation

Sardar Yousafzai is a senior musician from Malakand Division. He did not give up his profession or leave the area even when militants attacked him in 2008.

“I was returning from a concert with a friend, senior harmonium player Anwar Gul Ustad, when the culprits attacked us,” he said. Yousafzai added his friend was killed while he was severely injured.

According to the singer, militants had captured Swat and banned all music activities but he refused to tolerate the imposition.

“I continued my passion and my profession and did not give up singing despite being asked and threatened to do so several times,” he told The Express Tribune.



“After the attack, I was tortured in different ways but the love for music and loyalty to the country trumped,” he added.

Yousafzai is renowned for his songs and compositions throughout the area. His rendition of ghazals by poets like Ghani Khan Baba, Rahmat Shah Sail, Ikramullah Gran and Iqbal Shakir won him recognition among Pukhtuns in Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan.

The singer urged the K-P government to help him at this difficult time since he had been serving Pukhtun culture in every sense of the word for the last several decades. “The treatment is possible abroad and Zaland and I desperately need support,” Yousafzai said.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2016.