Breaking News : Firing on a bus in Safoora Chowrangi. Atleast 5 killed, dozens injured. Just another news.
Breaking News few minutes later: Firing on a bus full of Ismailis; 40+ killed, more than 20 injured. Now this is some news. Politicians across the board do their usual condemnations; some on twitter with a tweet, others through press releases. Channels start with their competition of “exclusive coverage”. General public like me keep up a status update on Facebook and start giving expert defense analysis on social media.
Few minutes later: Army chief cancels his visit to Sri Lanka and is moving to Karachi. Interior Minister Sindh moves to the area and does a press talk. Meanwhile, in Islamabad there is an all important National Conference going on regarding the trade route of China-Pakistan which cannot be absolutely postponed. PM of Pakistan asks the participants about their opinion. Maulana Fazlurehman and Asfandyarwali give perfect answer: These incidents are a routine so let’s continue with our own meeting. Now the meeting is on all channels.
Few minutes later: Army Chief is in Karachi, while the politicians are eating food. One of the media channel gives news: PM along with parliamentary leaders “craves” for lunch. Can I ask that media channel how many of your employees didn’t have lunch yesterday? I agree that lunch visuals were bad and PM should have ordered to cut the live feed of lunch or canceled the lunch during the meeting at-least. But, where are our media ethics? What was media trying to show the world by giving breaking news about the lunch?
Few minutes later: CM Sindh suspends IG Police and the order was taken back in like 1-2 hours. PM tells that all of us will go to Karachi after the meeting. Some Karachi based politicians start reaching hospitals and families of the dead. Media Channels get busy with the coverage of bus, asking the effected families how are you feeling????? During all this time certain group of people like always are spreading all over the social media that this incident like all the previous ones is RAW sponsored and is a conspiracy by X, Y and Z country to damage the economic corridor with China. Certain leaders of opposition parties demand for resignation of the CM of province forgetting totally that their Chief Ministers never resigned when same type incidents happened in their provinces.
Later in the evening: PM, CM, Governor, Army Chief, DG ISI and certain other people once again sit together and tell the nation once again that we will finish this terrorism. A day of mourning is announced and the money is announced for the dead and the injured. The day ends.
Above was the story of yesterday. Change the location and certain names and this will be the story of every incident which has at-least more than 30 killings or involves certain high profile people or some minority. Had the killings been 10-20, it would have hardly been news for more than 2 hours. This is how immune we have become. I, myself didn’t make my picture on social media, black like I did on 16th December, 2014. 2 months from now if God forbid same type of incident happens somewhere that’s how the story will be: breaking news, condemn, visits, photos, money for effected, telling public once again that we will deal with it. Jandullah or ISIS or TTP etc accept the responsibility and the case is closed. How many asked how 6-8 armed terrorists attacked a bus, kept firing for around half an hour and then ran away too. No one from CM to interior minister to IG to DG Rangers Karachi felt morally that they should resign and it was their responsibility to protect the citizens of state. The issues were who broke the news first, who reached Karachi first, who is eating food and who gets most Re-tweets on a certain conspiracy theory or gets most likes on a certain status update. Yeah, and there is one lobby who will tell after every such incident that the solution to every problem in Pakistan is Secular Pakistan as if Islam asks Muslims to kill others.
Let’s hope and pray for a peaceful and safe Pakistan for everyone.
