PESHAWAR: The old market of storytellers, Qissa Khawani Bazaar, is left with few memories of traders and travellers sharing their stories over a cup of green tea, while passing from Afghanistan to the subcontinent.
Dhaki Nalbandi, the centuries-old narrow street leading from the main Qissa Khawani Bazaar, once famous for the birth of film icons, has now turned into a place remembered for massacres, where many legends breathe their last.
The recent events at the bazaar are creating a new history. If travellers would sit over a cup of tea today, there would only be tales of violence to share.
If storytellers of modern-day Qissa Khawani share their stories they will tell the listeners about the killing of 20 people on January 28, 2007. Among the deceased was a well-respected police official of the city CCPO Malik Saad and police official Khan Raziq.
The storytellers will then go on to say that three years later, on April 18, 2010, a suicide bomber targeted DSP Gulfat Hussain, three police constables and a Jamaat-e-Islami leader Dost Muhammad Khan only 50 metres south of Dhaki Nalbandi.
They will surely tell the story of November 11, 2012, when a suicide bomber targeted SP (Investigation) Hilal Haider’s vehicle barely 200 meters west of Dhaki Nalbandi.
“Awami National Party Provincial Minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour, who had survived two assassination attempts in the past, was targeted on December 22, 2012,” they will say next. “Police official Abdul Sattar and seven others were also killed in the suicide attack in the middle of Dhaki Nalbandi,” they would add, while pointing to the narrow lane.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 24th, 2012.
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@Naha Laas: Most of the time we do'nt want true information rather we need information that confirms our predudices. We are living in a world where instead of condeming the unjustice and showing sysmphathy with the decease, we are praising the killers. The irony is not end here we go one step further by ridiculing those who stood firm on his stand despite all the odds, difficulties and death threats. Being a human apart from regionosity religiosity anyone who has sane thinking will surely condemn this brutal attack. And as our religion teach us condeming such a brutal killing is the weakest sign of eeeman. May Allah give us the courage to speak in front of the evil powers atleast. with apology.:(
Chickens have come home to roost. Instead of dissociating from America's socalled War on Terror (aka invasion of resource rich Afghanistan) the ANP government jumped on the bandwagon, in return for a few dollars at the memorable meeting at Bacha Khan Markaz in 2007. The bombings immediately escalted in 2007 and today we are seeing the same greedy politicians being portrayed as martyrs, though it is no secret how they only served themselves, their political favourites But not their country. May God forgive them and forgive us.