Targetted toddlers: As violence grows, city’s little ones are caught in the middle

Sunday was the bloodiest day for the children of Karachi.

KARACHI: Mubasher muttered his last words, “Mama ko bulao, mama ko bulao,” [Call mama, call mama] as he took two small breaths and succumbed to his wounds. Usually when the seven-year-old from Orangi Town would hear the rattle gunfire, he would shout out for his mother and rush to her. But this time, the bullet came faster for him than his mother’s arms.

This Sunday was so far the bloodiest day for children since the beginning of the year, when seven children were caught up in the violence that is unfortunately a routine activity in the city.

“When will the killings stop?” cried Khalid, the father, as he showed the wide lane where the child was shot in broad daylight. The boy was playing tag with his cousins just across his apartment building when firing started by unknown people and a bullet hit him on his head. “Dozens of people are killed every day, and now the criminals are after children. What was my son’s fault?”

Mubasher’s cousin, Sheheryar, was so terrified that he contracted fever. “When we heard the gunfire, we thought it was firecracker at first. But then we saw blood coming out from his head and started screaming.”



Inside Mubasher’s house, his mother Afshan clutched his blood stained jeans and blue shirt, sobbing and repeating. “Bring my child back.” A teary-eyed Khalid, a city government employee, said that his eldest child wanted to be a doctor. “When my mother was paralysed, Mubasher would say to her that he would cure her by becoming a doctor. He was a simple boy. He loved to watch Tom and Jerry and play cricket.”

Apart from Mubasher’s killing by a stray bullet, a toddler came in the midst of a target killing in New Karachi. Two-and-half-year-old Hammad came in the midst of a political killing when he was playing outside at night. He came under fire when a political activist of Sunni Tehreek was shot at. Critically shot, the toddler is now battling for survival at Aga Khan hospital.

In Mianwali Colony, a brawl between Christians led to the injuries of six boys, who were hit by pellets. Khurram, a resident, said that the children were treated at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital and were safely home. “It was sad that people are becoming so violent that they are now targeting young children. No child is safe now.”

Last year according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan 2012, 12 children became victims of target killings and 22 were killed by stray bullets.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2013.