The ultimate sacrifice: Dejected PPP worker threatens to set himself on fire

Irshad Hussain was injured in the 2007 blast on Benazir Bhutto's convoy but the party has deserted him since.

KARACHI:

Irshad Hussain was given a second chance to life. He wishes he wasn't; at least he would not have lived to taste the bitterness of desertion by the very people for whose protection he had volunteered to be a human barrier. 

The young man was part of the Pakistan Peoples Party's (PPP) security detail to protect Benazir Bhutto in 2007. He was injured in the October 18, 2007, bomb attack at her convoy at Karsaz, ended up with a spinal cord injury and is paralysed from the waist down.

Hussain says he never received the money for treatment or the jobs promised by the party. Even party leader Owais Muzaffar, who had been supporting him personally, has stopped giving him money for the treatment now.

On Tuesday, the wheelchair-bound young man threatened to self-immolate if Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Benazir's son, didn't meet him and take up the responsibility of bearing his medical expenses.

"I am ready to do anything right now; I am so tired of my life. If Bilawal doesn't meet me, I will burn myself," he said resolutely, outside a cigarette stall near Bilawal House.

Hussain, 28, who came to Bilawal House on Tuesday morning, plans to stay near the PPP headquarters till he gets to meet the party's chairperson. A rickshaw parked near his wheelchair had the petrol for his suicide act.

A picture of Benazir pinned to his clothes, Hussain remembers sleeping on the footpath for days near the airport before her arrival in 2007.  "I was so happy to see her. That was the first time I saw her in real life."

The next morning, while Hussain and the other injured were being treated at a hospital, Benazir came to meet him and promised to take care of all his medical expenses. The party also promised to provide government jobs. None of that happened, he claims.

Once a cook at a small food establishment, Hussain has been living off donations and loans from relatives and neighbours for the past seven years. He has no other means to support his family, which includes his parents, wife and three children who live in their small house in Pehlwan Goth.  As he glances at people walking around, Hussain looks down dejectedly and says, "I am so tired. I have been lying on the charpoy for the last seven years while others are running." Despite being heartbroken, Hussain says he will never leave the party and will remain a die-hard supporter.  His family, hailing from Parachinar, has always supported the PPP.

Meanwhile, Bilawal house spokesperson Ejaz Durrani told The Express Tribune that a meeting had been fixed with Bilawal's representatives for Wednesday (today) where Hussain's issues will be discussed. Hussain wants to walk again. "All I want is for the party to support my treatment and send me abroad if needed. Bilawal is my only hope."

Published in The Express Tribune, June 3^rd, 2015.