Forgotten heroes of war

Families of martyrs were only given Rs0.8 million from Shuhada Package, not the Rs3 million introduced later.

PESHAWAR:

A few days a week, a woman is seen at Zangali check post of Badhaber police, staring at the place where her husband died. She sits there for hours, without uttering a word. People passing by now know who she is; they are used to her presence, and leave her in solitude.

The woman is the wife of head constable Shah Jehan who died in a bomb blast in 2008. Four years have passed and she still insists on coming to the site of the attack. “No matter how much her relatives try to take her back home, she does not budge,” said a passerby.

The bomb blast happened on September 6 that year. Two police constables on duty, Shah Jehan and Sameen Jan, stopped a double cabin pick up at the check post. What had meant to be a routine security check turned ugly when explosives were found in the vehicle en route to Zangali from Darra Adam Khel. The van was headed towards the provincial assembly.

Shah Jehan asked the driver to step down, but he refused. What Shah Jehan did not know was that the driver was wearing a suicide vest.  When the police constable pulled him out of the car and held him tight, the suicide bomber blew up.

The blast was so powerful that it wiped out the entire check post and a police armoured personnel carrier parked near it. Everything within a 100 metres radius was reduced to pieces. Thirty people, including four policemen, were killed in the attack and more than 70 people were injured. Markets on both sides of the roads were destroyed and it took rescue workers two days to remove the bodies buried under the debris.

Nearly all bodies were found except for the bodies of Shah Jehan and Sameen Jan. They had been reduced to pieces. The men lost their lives along with the post in charge Aurangzeb, but they saved countless others.

According to SHO Khaliq Daad, the families of the two constables were handed over a Pakistan flag and police caps with news that their loved ones had lost their lives in the line of duty. His wife could not be convinced that he had died and there was no body to prove it to her.  She was traumatised and to this day she has not recovered completely. She insists to be taken to the check post every few days where she spends a few hours.

Aurangzeb was the father of two sons and two daughters. His brother tried for months to convince police that the Rs0.8 million given in the Shahuda Package to his brother’s family was not enough and demanded they should be given the Rs3 million package which was introduced later, but his attempts were in vain. No one remembers these martyrs outside Badhaber. They are the forgotten heroes of this war.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2012.