[Pak Daily Times] At the age of 15, Aitzaz Hussain Bangash did what the leadership of this country, both civilians and men in uniform, has failed to do. He died a hero's death so that his schoolmates could live on and realise their worldly dreams. He cut his life short so others could blossom. Aitzaz could have listened to the pleas of his friends and run away like them, he could have reasoned with himself, he could have thought of his family and his unfulfilled dreams, he could have been smart like our leaders by saving his skin and letting the jacket wallah blow dozens of children up in flames but he chose otherwise. He confronted the bomber with the intention of preventing an attack.
Aitzaz Hussain died in the incident that took place last week in Ibrahimzai, a Shia-dominated region of Hangu district
... Hangu is famous for its greenery, hills, beauty and water. Most of the people of this area are Bangash & Orakzai Pashtuns. Part of the Bangash are Shia. The Orakzai and the Sunni Bangash are determined to kill them...
. Imran Khan
... aka Taliban Khan , who ain't the brightest knife in the national drawer...
should know that Aitzaz's school was neither training drone operators nor was it a launching pad for drones. What Imran Khan and Prime Minister  Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
would never say publicly is that the children were targeted because of their faith -- a Shia faith. Imran Khan acclaimed the hero but timidly avoided condemning the villain.
His friend Nayed Ali was right on the money when he told the media that it was time people came out and fought these turbans on their own. His despair was visible with the security forces, which have failed to protect the lives and property of innocent Paks. In another incident, we lost an intrepid police officer, Chaudhry Aslam Khan, to a suicide kaboom in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
. According to media reports, he had survived several earlier attempts on his life, including a devastating attack on his residence in 2011. This time around, Chaudhry Aslam's luck had, unfortunately, run out, as a powerful bomb targeted his van.
The bravery of his wife, Noreen Aslam, was heartening. She said her husband knew that he was "living to die". He was top on the list of the Taliban and other criminal gangs but he never shied away from his duty to take on these brutes. He indeed had conquered the fear of death.
And what did we give these two brave souls in return? We lamented their death with shallow condemnations from our leaders, with strings attached that talks with the turbans are the road to peace. The typical condemnatory statements that their blood would not go wasted and that their sacrifices would be remembered forever appeared on television channels as they do somehow after every such incident. To make sure that their deaths, and those of the many more before them, do not go in vain, the government has to take firm action to uproot all violent bully boy outfits.
The Frankenstein monster that our security forces created to hurt the interests of our neighbouring countries is biting back. Afghanistan President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
was right when he said that the earlier Pakistain realises the perils of nurturing terrorists, the better it will be for Pakistain and Afghanistan: "Terrorism is a snake and when you train a snake, you cannot expect it will only go into the neighbour's house." Pakistain has nurtured snakes like the Razakars, al Badr, al Shams, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Harkatul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned , always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
, Jaish-e-Muhammad, and the list goes on. The first target were the unarmed Bengalis in former East Pakistain, which ultimately gained freedom to become Bangladesh. Almost 20 years later, these private militias were sent to Kashmire to stoke the fires of separatism. The recent phenomenon is the launching of the lashkars (collective tribal forces) in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), frontier regions and districts bordering the tribal belt to fight against the Taliban, thus exposing the rustics to turbans and creating chaos in a society that is already passing through difficult times. One wonders what the purpose is of holding a large military apparatus if the battles are going to be waged by civilian militias.
It is no secret anymore that Pakistain supported the war in Afghanistan against the former Soviet Union, funding and arming several jihadi groups. After the withdrawal of Soviet forces, the military establishment pitched one group against another, which resulted in infighting costing thousands of Afghan lives.
Following 9/11, the rules of the game changed and more multi-ethnic turbans arrived in the tribal belt when the government of General Musharraf looked the other way. The tribal belt turned into a large guesthouse where these turbans stayed, relaxed and left on their missions, furthering their expansionist ideology.
After the death of every brave soul, our leaders do not waste a moment in declaring them to be a shaheed (martyr), implying that the dead have received their reward already. It is time we expunge this word shaheed from our national psyche for two reasons. One, with its religious overtones, it becomes the property of religious parties, which they use as they will. Second, it glorifies death and is a tool in the hands of rulers who employ it to rule. One wonders that, if being a martyr is such a coveted position, why do the preachers of martyrdom, the generals, politicians and the contractors of paradise, the mullahs, not aspire to embrace martyrdom? "They say my son is a martyr. He died during a sacred month but who will feel my pain, the pain of losing a son?" the late Chaudhry Aslam's father said with tearful eyes.
Being a country without heroes, Pakistain needs heroes but those who are alive, not dead. This business of making deaders has to stop. The business of worshipping dead heroes has to end.
Can we humbly ask the leadership of Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society , founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer . The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
(JI) and Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) to enlighten us about who they think is a shaheed: Aitzaz or the suicide bomber, Chaudhry Aslam Khan or his attacker, Naeemullah?
The former chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, has been provided with a bulletproof vehicle on the court's order. It is another matter that the vehicle could have been used by soldiers fighting turbans but being at the end of his life's journey, who is Justice Chaudhry really afraid of? Liberals do not appreciate violence and fanatics have the highest regard for him. The Taliban have said that if they respect anyone in Pakistain, it is Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. I rest my case. |
[DAWN] A police investigation team probing into the deadly 
[DAWN] KARACHI: Motorcycle-riding assailants 
[DAWN] Two more 
Kurram Agency
Pervez 