Off camera, minister’s sympathy ebbs

Sympathetic minister promised govt help for suicide bomb victim, a month later Qasim still in need of treatment.

LAHORE: Blinded in both eyes from shrapnel from a suicide bombing, Qasim Malik needed expensive medical treatment to regain his eyesight. The sympathetic minister listened to his tragic story over the phone and promised that the government would help, inviting him to his office the next day.

The host of the television show nodded in approval and the audience got their ‘good news’ story. But over a month later, away from the glare of the cameras, Qasim is still in need of that treatment.

An official close to the minister in question, Punjab Finance Minister Tanvir Ashraf Kaira, insisted that he would eventually follow through on his promises. “It’s unfortunate that we have not had a meeting yet,” said the official. “But Kaira has never failed to keep a promise.”

Qasim’s father is not holding his breath. “We need the treatment. It will have to be done out of our own pocket. We are not expecting any help from Kaira Sahib,” said Akhtar Javed Malik. “They have turned us into professional beggars. Our politicians and leaders make statements to the media and then they forget us.”

Qasim was praying at Data Darbar on July 1 when two suicide bombers attacked the shrine. The 26-year-old software engineer was struck in the face by shrapnel from the second blast. His injuries were so bad that his father, scanning the faces of the dead and injured at Mayo Hospital in the hours after the bombing, could barely recognise him. The blast had burnt the clothes off his blood-drenched body, a piece of shrapnel had torn a huge gash across his cheek and his lips were gone.

“I had to look through hundreds of bodies for my son,” said Akhtar. “When I found him he was drenched in blood and I asked, ‘How are you Qasim?’ He responded, ‘Father, you are here?’”

Over the next five months, Qasim had a dozen surgeries including six on his eyes. Today, he is not in total darkness, but sees little beyond blurs and shadows. “It [my vision] is not good, but there is a slight blur that I can see,” said Qasim. “I try to be positive.”

The cost of these surgeries, Rs300,000, was covered partly by Qasim’s employers, Kohinoor Textile Mills, and partly by his father, who runs a photo studio. But the doctors told Qasim that to further improve his vision, he would need specialist surgery on his retina abroad.  The family did get some help from the government: it gave compensation cheques of Rs75,000 to each of the people injured in the Data Darbar blasts, though Javed said he had to give a Rs10,000 bribe at the Katchery to secure his check. But surgery abroad would cost a lot more.

So on October 18, when Qasim appeared on a programme on Express 24/7 with the Punjab finance minister, he asked him directly for help. The minister pledged that the government would set up a board of doctors to review his treatment and then pay the full cost, even if it meant sending him abroad. He also asked the family to come to his office at 10am the next day for a meeting.

But the same night, they got a call from his office saying the minister was off to Islamabad the next day so the meeting would have to be delayed. “Three days later, when he had returned from Islamabad, I was told by his personal assistant that the assembly was in session so the minister was busy,” said Akhtar.

“Then they said that he had gone to Karachi. Fifteen days after the television show, I called again and Kaira Sahib said he would call back, but he never did,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 24^th, 2010.