13/01/2014
PESHAWAR: The 15-year-old Aitezaz Hassan Bangash is a hero. He
laid his life on January 6 to save his Hangu schoolmates from falling
victim to the devil designs of a suicide bomber.
Young Hassan did something that most of us, perhaps, would not even
dare think about when a situation warrants. His parallel to none
sacrifice is being eulogised by all except for some.
Foreign and local media has covered his valour with professional
aplomb. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has recommended his name to the
President for conferment of Sitara-i-Shujaat on him.
Military authorities have also jumped in as well. Army chief sent in a
representative to lay a wreath of flowers on the young hero’s last
resting place and asked the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary to
recommend young Hassan for Sitara-i-Shujaat, ignoring that the same has
already been done by the premier.
Senate has passed a resolution, recognising his and the bravery of
Sindh police officer Chaudhry Aslam killed in a Karachi bomb blast on
Thursday.
Malala Yousufzai, the internationally acclaimed peace and education
activist from Swat, has reportedly announced Rs500,000 for Hassan’s
family.
On a much larger scale, the young Bangash scion has become a
household name. In family living rooms,
friends’ gatherings, social networking sites, political conversations,
people just can’t fail to recognise his service to humanity and bravery.
Are we missing here something in listing out praise, affection,
recognition with which people and institutions have responded to
acknowledge the young man’s courage in preferring death over
spinelessness?
Yes, we are missing someone that is important because of its
constitutional responsibility and moral obligation towards its people.
Someone that is also important to directly serve an assurance to the
young hero’s family, friends, and the whole of citizenry of Hangu and
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, reminding them that there is somebody out there to
feel their pain, shed tear on their loss, solace them in their difficult
time, and stand bravely with them in a time when they need it the most.
The silence with which the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has reacted
to the young man’s courage or the carelessness with which it responded
to the attack on the school is not so astonishing.
The provincial assembly offered belated prayers (on Friday) for both
Hassan and the Sindh police officer. Had it not been the police
officer’s tragic death in a violent Taliban attack, the assembly might
not have opted to remember the young hero.
One can put this argument across with certain degree of confidence
because the assembly did not pay attention to the Hangu school attack in
its sittings held between Monday and Friday: the day the attack
occurred and the day the prayers were offered.Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf
and its major coalition partner Jamaat-i-Islami have over the past
several months shown the tendency to protest and explode in condemnation
only
when a militant is killed in a US drone attack. They beat chest on every
such occasion and term it a
conspiracy to thwart peace prospects.
PTI chairman Imran Khan’s statement following the Sindh police
officer’s murder did not come as a surprise either. The party’s stand
towards militancy may not be in line with its own election manifesto,
but it is consistent with its attempts to avoid confrontation with
Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.
There is a growing public perception that suggests the PTI leadership
is frightened of challenging Taliban over their violence against
humanity.
The party supporters might differ with the observation by citing
Imran Khan’s recent participation in the polio vaccination campaign in
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as a reminder of going against Taliban.
However, Mr Khan’s participation in the vaccination campaign would
have meant something really bigger if he had chosen to administer the
polio vaccination drops to children in Peshawar or Swabi where the
ruthless hands gunned down poor vaccinators in the recent. Instead, Mr
Khan chose to administer drops to a grandson of his political ideologue
Maulana Samiul Haq at a well guarded rural health centre at Akkora
Khattak.
Governance requires a little more than rehashing old ideas to
formulate forms and project them as a recipe for change. It also
requires more than studying different laws to make a new regulation and
claim it to be a new initiative. Laws are important. Equally important
is the enforcement. Without strict and effective implementation good
laws becomes a burden of history.
PTI has promised to ensure good governance. Its election manifesto
serves as a sorry reminder of a document that has apparently lost
meaning in today’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
PTI’s latest take on peace is well known. Peace cannot be established
unless drone strikes are stopped. What if TTP does not agree to peace
talks even if the drone strikes are stopped? TTP has already spoken its
mind: its struggle is for the enforcement of Sharia in Pakistan, which
means drone strikes are a secondary issue.
We can’t remind Chief Minister Pervez Khattak his role as a protector
of the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
But, we can refer to his party’s election manifesto in which it clearly
states that “PTI also recognises the scourge of terrorism and its
devastating effect on Pakistan and its citizens.” Isn’t Aitezaz a victim
of terrorism? Doesn’t he deserve justice? Shouldn’t we arrest the
masterminds, who planned the ghastly attack on Hangu’s school?
These are the questions the answers to which are lost deep in PTI-led
provincial government’s silence over the consistency with which
terrorists have targeted people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since its taking
office in June last.
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