Extended suffering: In Peshawar, the death of one brings down a dozen others

Elderly father of Khyber market bomb victim now has to find a way to provide for wife, children and grandchildren.

PESHAWAR:

Subhanabad, situated some two kilometres from University Road in Tehkal, Peshawar, seems to be frozen in time. A rutted road snakes across open fields from Tehkal Payan and the locality itself is mishmash of dirt (kachha) houses.

Here lives the family of Mir Mohammad, a victim of Saturday’s twin bombings in Khyber Super Market. Mir used to sell tikkas at his village bus stop during the day and worked at a restaurant at night. Two jobs was the only way he could feed and clothe his extended family.

As a child Mir went to a religious seminary, but he had no formal schooling. Invariably, like millions of forgotten souls, he also had to endure a hard struggle for life.

He got married a few years back, and had three daughters.

Mir Zaman Khan, his father, was a daily-wage worker but around two years back, his back refused to keep up with the toll of being a daily-wage labourer and he had to stop working when he developed serious spinal problems.

“My son used to earn Rs300 a day making parathas at the restaurant,” the 60-year-old Zaman told The Express Tribune. He said that his son would spend the night at the restaurant and return to the village early in the morning to start selling tikkas.

“Our living condition is akin to what they tell in narration of Prophet’s companions: if there is a no work one day, then there is no meal,” Zaman said.

And then came the fateful Sunday, when they received a call from the restaurant asking them to reach the hospital, as Mir had sustained injuries in a blast.

His aging father raced to the Lady Reading Hospital, only to find Mir’s body with the rest of the dead. Carrying his lifeless 30-year-old son back home made Zaman feel like the sky had fallen on him.

“I have not gone home since my son’s body was buried,” he said, as he lingers all day in a tented space near his house, receiving those offering their condolences.

Incidentally, his small house is rented, with the family paying Rs1,800 in rent, and has no gas connection, while electricity has been provided to them by a neighbour, who they pay monthly.

Mir had 12 mouths to feed — 11 women and girls and his sick elderly father, who will now have to take up the duties of providing for the family. He will have to take care of his six daughters, three granddaughters, daughter-in-law and an aging wife.

“We are now on the mercy of Allah and have no one else to turn to,” Zaman said, as his voice choked.

Zaman and his family are by no means the only family to suffer so terribly in the ongoing war on terror, as thousands of people suffered similar fates across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the tribal areas, and the rest of the country. Unfortunately, his story, like the thousands of others, will soon fade away amid the headlined death tolls and claims and denials of responsibility.

For an ordinary man it seems, suffering can only go unnoticed.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16th, 2011.