Sanaha e Karsaz

Bilawal Zardari after losing a bye election in their stronghold Larkana tried to salvage the party’s image by showing its force of strength in Karachi by remembering the Shuhada of Sahna e Karsaz today.  Just to remind him of the actual happening allow me to reconstruct the scenario as under:

1. Distance from Karachi Airport to Quaid mausoleum: 9 miles
2. Travel time : 18 hours (In spite of govt. warnings of bomb attack - which eventually did take place)
3. Distance from Karsaz to Clifton : 5 miles.
4. Benazir Flight Time by car:  10 minutes.
5. Number of dead in the incident: approx 150.
6. Number of injured: approx over 100.
7. Benazir’s visit to the Shuhada families: after 3 long days.
8. Wasn't she warned by the govt. of a possible bomb attack on half a mile long procession moving at snail’s pace at night time for hours on an end.
9. Wasn't a bullet proof truck built for her to traverse this distance?  
10. If there was no danger of bomb attack why did she use the bullet proof truck?
11. And if there was the threat then why did she endanger the lives of the party workers to such an obvious threat especially when the govt had forewarned her of the bomb attack?
12. If she couldn’t foresee such an imminent attack was she an intelligent leader worth her salt?
13. And if she did apprehend the attack and then knowingly exposed the party workers to such a fatal fate, is it the way a political leader should take care of the precious lives of the poor party workers?
14. Does Bilawal Zardari’s commemorating the Shuhada’s day not amount to playing the politics of the corpses?

I leave it for the readers to judge.

Col. Syed Riaz Jafri (Retd)