Gilgit youngsters went down fighting

Anger in G-B over ‘risky’ work, little accountability far away from home

GILGIT: They were taught to go down fighting ‘evil forces’ instead of giving in. And that is precisely what they did.

Moeen Akhtar and Abdul Salam from Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) had been killed by armed robbers while resisting a robbery in Karachi last week.

After withdrawing cash from an ATM in the Gulzar-e-Hijri area, robbers appeared out of nowhere and tried to snatch their money and mobile phones. Just as the snatchers were about to take off, the two youngsters – both in their mid-20s – decided to take on their assailants.



They sat back in their car and Moeen, who was driving the car, decided to ram the motorbike robbers. He sped his car towards them in reverse.

Alas, he missed them.

Before he could make another attempt, the robbers fired on them and fled. The two youngsters died on the spot. “It was a tragic incident and we all are still in a state of shock,” said Amjad Hussain, a relative.

“They were young and could not bear the insult of being robbed. They decided to fight and thus lost their lives,” Hussain told The Express Tribune. Akhtar, who was the sole breadwinner of his family, had been working with a private property developer in the megalopolis. Salam, who had graduated from the Aga Khan University, used to work as an Assistant Manager for Nursing Services at the non-governmental health-oriented agency Karwan-e-Hayat.

While Akhtar’s family lives in Rahimabad, Salam hails from Zulfiqarabad in Gilgit.

“There is no respite from the pain of losing the young souls,” said Akhtar’s uncle Muhammad Javed.

“We have no answer to his mother’s questions about the robbery and why it happened,” said Javed in a faint voice. ‘She asks what the law enforcement agencies are doing about it, and why the killers have not been arrested and punished as yet.” According to Javed, Akhtar had four younger brothers who had pinned their hopes of a bright future on their elder sibling.



“But it is highly risky to go for jobs in cities like Karachi,” he said. The killing has drawn widespread condemnation across G-B after their bodies were brought back to the region for burial.

Numerous people have been posting on social media expressing their shock and anger under pictures of the two slain men.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2017.