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Twenty eight hours, seven lives

It’s this weird feeling that has been haunting me all night. The fire in the cold storage keeps flashing before my eyes. The faint screams of the seven people stuck won’t stop echoing. It’s like I can’t decide what disgusts me more. I can’t think of who to hold responsible. Who to blame?

The Civil Aviation Authority that restored flight operations without the rescue operation being completed breaking international laws by doing so? Leaving the seven helpless people stuck under the debris, locked in with fire in the cold storage for twenty eight hours.

The company’s management who left their employees stranded inside the facility and failed to take up the issue in front of the responsible authorities?

The inhuman barbarians and heartless monsters that carried out the attack?

The interior minister Chaudhry Nisar who kept saying all is well and the fire has been put off when just a few miles away from his air conditioned room, the intensity of the blaze was burning down the last hope to live for the seven people trapped, while their helpless relatives were standing outside watching it all happen?

Try putting yourself in their shoes for some time. Imagine one of your loved ones in trapped under debris, in a storage room on fire right in front of you and he is screaming, constantly calling for help while the event is being covered live on television. And yet, there is no one to listen to you. There is no one to help. The information minister refuses to answer his phone and the authorities threaten to call the police if you don’t leave them alone.

Meanwhile, the Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah arrives at the spot, talks to the media, says none of this is his responsibility and walks out. His VIP protocol hinders the rescue workers from doing their job and you just stand there watching his air conditioned car drive past you.

Imagine how helpless their family members must have felt. Think of what they might have gone through over the 28 hours, knowing their loved ones are out there in pain and that they need them. Yet, there is nothing they can do to help.

Inayatullah, Nabeel Ahmed, Faizan Ahmed, Sultan, Saif-ur-Rehman, Fareedullah, and Farhan-ul-Haq weren’t seven lives lost or seven dead bodies found. They were seven hopes murdered, seven families destroyed.

Twenty eight hours: the time it takes for a cold storage room to turn into a human toaster; the time it takes for a rescue operation to end; the time it takes for seven humans screaming and begging for help to turn into dead bodies; the time it takes for one to lose faith in humanity.

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