‘Politicians should give us their jobs. We’ll show them how to protect people’

Ten-year-old Baqar, a resident of Abbas Town, steps out of his house on Sunday evening to never make it back home.

KARACHI:

Ten-year-old Baqar, a resident of Abbas Town, stepped out of his house on Sunday evening to buy a bag of his favourite crisps. He never made it back home.

“I always tuck my son into bed every night, but I didn’t get to do that on Sunday. He went to sleep on his own that day,” wept Naseem, the boy’s mother.

She, along with hundreds of mourners, had turned up at the Ancholi Imambargah on Monday afternoon where women dressed in veils sobbed, hugged and consoled each other. Naseem’s voice had gone hoarse, but she still went on. “Send me to Baqar. Unite me with my child.”

The boy’s aunt clasped her hand tightly. “Baqar was such a well-behaved child. He would never play on the streets like other boys. He just went outside to buy a packet of chips,” she said as tears streamed down her face.

Near the hall’s entrance, Tafseer, who had lost her brother Iqbal and a nephew, had gone pale. She would swoon, come to and collapse again. “Your [reporters’] notebooks would be full, but you would never be able to capture our pain completely,” she said. Though the mourners were weak after a sleepless night, they were suddenly galvanised when Shehla Raza, the deputy speaker of the Sindh Assembly, and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Haider Abbas Rizvi stepped through the entrance gate.

The women told Raza - whose cousin’s husband died in the blast - that she should resign.

The women also rushed towards the MQM leader as soon as he entered the Imambargah. “What kind of leaders are you? You can’t protect your own people. Give us your job and we will show you how to protect people!” they said, bringing him to tears.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2013.