Who is wrong?
Rehan Khan
A painful episode of life awaited my entry when I gained senses from a deep slumber of peace. Upon my casual visit into the different rooms of house, revealed before me the images that hardly had any resemblance even in the fantasized pages of novels. My father, mother and siblings had been cut down into the smallest of pieces with the aid of razor-sharp knives and pointed tools. The pool of blood on the surface has stained hard enough to contain the fluid movement, reflecting the ruthless chapter of cold-blooded murder. A shrill cry erupted from the deepest part of my heart, straddled through the windpipe and resonated in the vibes of house. Before I collected the strength of my speech, people around my house pounced on me like the swooping eagles, allegedly presuming me the assassin. Hurt emotionally, physically and mentally, I was dragged to the nearby police station and trashed behind the metallic bars for the sins I had no association with. Beaten, tortured and demeaned; no pain or suffering in this world left me. The media behind the boundaries of my four walls weaved stories out of sheer ignorance, having no connection with the harsh reality. My cry went unheard, the pain went un-noticed and the grievances ignored.
The entire world conspired to push me against the walls.
My own people offered a cold shoulder to me; consigned my emotions to the flames of fire. I was painfully made to feel secluded from the others. But, I will not let the feeling of agony take away the strength to retaliate. On my release, I will regroup myself on strong footings and unleash against my own people with arms and guns. Every drop of blood oozed out of my body will be compensated with the series of bombings on every nook and corner. My own people planted the seed of anger in me, watered it on regular basis and transformed it into a plant with multiple branches. I am hardened enough to resist the flow of anger taking the form of expression. I was one of the descent citizens of tribal regions but now the spearhead of a guerilla gang. You tell me who is wrong, you or me? I am the voice of thousands who earn their keep on the rugged terrains of Waziristan and Swat. Stranded in the maze of compromises, I am the embodiment of their sufferings, grievances and tribulations. I am the unfortunate sample of those who live in the raging fire of hardships, face the most lethal version of atrocities and die without the knowledge of reason. When I gather the time and share my moments with the friends, acquaintances and family members, out of the blue; a foreign aircraft pierces through the columns of air, drops the cutting-edge detonators with explosives and flees away, leaving my friends crying in an ocean of pain, my acquaintances in the pool of their own blood and the family members roasted into the smallest pieces. When I stitch up the courage and expand the wings of my business deep into the town, an outfit with an ever-surging aggression thrust its own version of religion down my throat. Raised, taught and fed by this outfit, my children and colleagues are brainwashed into a mindset that defies every article of logic and rationalization.
From the lowest rung of personal matters to the highest echelons of social activities, the imposition of dreadful laws is paved by the terrorist outfit. They sell my values, religion, emotions and self-respect. How odd is it that I, standing on the same clay from whom I am moulded into, can’t dare to question their intervention into our lives? Most ironically, when I conform to their ideology in fear of being killed, men in uniform commonly known as army leap into my town with rifles and guns and shut down the business in an attempt to stamp their authority. They operate into my house in the dead night, drag me to the torture cells and bully me into accepting a false association with terrorists at the tip of gun. My life story for those who live beyond the boundaries of my town might be an episode of a serial drama, a chapter of a fiction novel, an imagination of a fertile mind, a stanza of a poem, a clip of a movie and a dreadful dream of a deep sleep but a daunting reality that is faced, tolerated and lived by me. The land beyond my town is a different planet with aliens having novel pattern of life. My country you give me the name, the respect, the honour and the lost dignity, I will give up the guns, bullets and arms.
Regards,
Citizen-turned terrorist
This is harsh reality the author has tried to put into his words.Would that the people at the helm of affairs read it and understand they are helping only further insurgency and employing more terrorists instead of eliminating them. Political process may be helpful.
Nonetheless, good read.
It’s about time we stop using emotional rhetoric, it’s about time you my friend stop being a terrorist sympathizer, however implicit you may try to sound but in the end you are, consciously or unconsciously, trying to justify the actions of terrorists as “reactions” only. That is not true.