Eid arrives in the midst of exploding bombs

By Afzal Hussain Bokhari

The English translation of the Pushto song is equally moving: “Peshawar, my beloved city, used to be a place associated with fragrance and flowers. How can I now see it bombed into ruins? As the victims of bomb explosions grimace in pain, the melancholy voice of Gulzar Alam emerges out of television channels. With a carefully placed wig on his head, the balding singer with a young look felt saddened while recording his impressions on television and tears welled up into his eyes.

The BBC man clicks his camera as a grief-stricken woman outside the Judicial Complex spreads out her long arms towards the sky and wails for the dead. Realising the news value of the picture in photo-journalism, the London-based network of radio and television puts the image on its Urdu web site as lead story.

Borrowing ready-made phrases from earlier texts, the PR boys issue notes of condemnation on behalf of the high and mighty of the land.

With a sickening repetition, the ministers peer out of television screens and dish out familiar platitudes. With a quick eye for a suspicious character, the gun-wielding policeman in a state of panic in the Lady Reading Hospital wrestles with a health worker who forgot to whip on his overall. Worried at the new shoot-at-sight orders, colleagues rushed out of their offices and wards to calm down the furious constable.

Residents of the otherwise secure Abdarra Road in the posh University Town were shaken out of their early morning dreams (Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib described the state of mind as ‘lazzat-i-khwab-i-seher’) as a rocket fired by the anti-social elements hit the offices of a foreign NGO that worked for the rehabilitation of the physically challenged human beings. By the way, the complete verse from Ghalib’s poetry reads as follows: “Wo bada-i-shabana ki sarmastiyan kahan; uthiye ke bus ab lazzat-i-khwab-i-seher gai”.

A few of the residents, in the habit of rising early, were on their way to the nearest shops to buy milk and the tea bags when they heard the sound of something smashing into the building. Nine out of 10 persons believed that it was an improvised explosive device that had gone off with a bang. Initial reports given by the television boys also said it was a bomb explosion.

However, when police squad from the nearby University Town police station arrived at the place and examined the building, it said that it was most likely a rocket fired from the suburban belt.

If past is any guide, there have been cases when anti-social elements fired rockets from village Acheeni near Phase III of Hayatabad.

The provincial government has beefed up the security arrangements. One can see mobile vans of army and police patrolling the busy thoroughfares of City. The administration has also increased the patrolling by commandoes of the anti-terrorism squad on motorbikes.

Still the criminals continue to operate with immunity. You have probably read the details of how three masked men with pistols burst into the Sikandarpura post-office on Saturday and walked away with Rs342, 000.

We have a mixed lot in police. There have been complaints, for instance, that some policemen on duty at the roadside barriers on the Ring Road Bridge on the confluence of Phase III and IV or the Railway Crossing at the Phase III Chowk tend to misuse their power.

During body search of alleged suspects, they do not mind pulling out a 100-rupee note out of the purse of a stranger travelling to the airport by a taxi-cab. Such constables hide their identity by using the protective anti-pollution mask even in the middle of night when there is hardly any dust around. They take this precaution so that the affected person cannot give the exact description of the policeman to the SP in case of a complaint.

The anti-corruption officials have stopped entrapping such money-hungry cops by secretly sending signed currency notes to them and watching the whole scene of accepting bribes from a distance.

Maybe the anti-corruption officials want to give police a chance to cash in on the present checking spree to make suitable preparations for Eidul Azha. It is amazing how the wave of subversion sometimes turns into a paying pursuit for the innovative sentinels.

Acts of subversion have added to the already acute sense of insecurity among the residents. The Islamic festival of Eidul Azha is just five days away and the faithful are continuing their hunt for the evasive sacrificial animals. The sprawling cattle market that used to emerge along the railway track between the Central Jail Bridge and the Bacha Khan Chowk appears to be a thing of the past.

The cattle dealers from the neighbouring rural belt don’t want to risk their lives by bringing a herd of sheep and goats to the City and place the animals in the midst of exploding bombs. There used to be a lot of wheeling and dealing over the prices of goats in Kohati Chowk but the people simply don’t dare out of their houses to roam idly on the sidewalks.

Those who have the resources and the courage drive up to Attock in search of animals. However, the prices boggle the mind. The dealers explain that rearing of livestock is no longer a profitable proposition. They maintain that the prices of fodder, transportation charges, the commission of the middle men, the municipal tax levied on the sale and purchase of sacrificial animals and, last but not least, the continued smuggling of livestock to Afghanistan and the Gulf States are some of the factors responsible for their soaring prices.

In view of the deteriorating situation of law and order, the district coordination officer Sahibzada Anees Ahmad has extended for another month the imposition of section 144. Under this section the movement or transportation of animals out of the district is prohibited.

However, it is doubtful if the professional smugglers of animals will feel deterred by a section to which the British rulers used to resort during 1930s and 1940s in harassing the general public which tried to unite against the foreign rule.