Is it fashion or passion to kill in Pakistan?

Each day I see on different television screens and also read in various newspapers that people are killed on daily basis without any gap in between and surprisingly at times  there is no apparent reason as to why someone is killed but yet killed is a bit baffling question and certainly it needs answer to be honest?

Before I proceed any further, let may say it very categorically and specifically that years back when I was very much living in the country Pakistan was not killing free country in any case but still I pen with conviction if nit authority that in those olden days there were some reasons and causes why people were killed. However, I am not at all justifying killing even for academic discussion as one may construe it alike but, nevertheless, if we compare killing of today with that of yesterday we are completely lost in between and to tell you the truth in some cases even the killer himself does not know why is he killing others. One way or the other, most of our news is blood soaked and it does not matter at all whether the blood was drained in Karachi or Gilgit; Quetta or Peshawar; Swat or Hyderabad for that matter though some of the cities and localities have surpassed others so far as fatalities are concerned.

Gone are the days when it was a land dispute between the two parties which at some point of time lost their balance and took arms in their hands and attacked each other and as result someone died on one side or even both sides.  Family enmity was yet another reason for the opposite parties to come to blows which at times converted into lethal battle whereby some were killed and or injured. Dispute in business also at times gave birth to confrontation between the business partners and if the things were not solved amicably then the parties concerned resorted to settle the same through pistols and guns instead and of course some were at least injured if not killed in such like feud. At times we have even heard that people professing different religions or beliefs clashed like Muslims fought against Qadyanis or more often minority Shias have pitched up against majority Sunnis and in such like clashes few lost their lives on either side. Last but not the least was the case when someone used a gun in self defense like a dacoit enters a house to loot but the owner of the house spotted the armed robber so he fired at the robber and killed him or vice versa the dacoit fearing his life in danger fired at the house owner and killed him.

The above explanation at least gives us some clue as to why somebody is killed on some date at same place but very much surprisingly over the last few years the killing phenomena has under gone so much drastic and savage changes that one simply cannot make out as to why someone has been killed. Honestly speaking, target killing was an alien term which was certainly not known to us some years back in my beloved Pakistan but then one way or the other it has taken over so rapidly that every second victim is categorized as target killing.  Who does not read daily that an ordinary common man who neither has money in his pocket, nor belonged to any well to do family, had no social status or not even he belonged to any political party but yet he was gunned down by someone while the poor soul was just sitting outside his house. Is it crime to sit outside your own house? In news one reads that someone unknown came on motor cycle and fired at the unknown poor worker who was just walking on a road. It is very much common to know that very often someone plants some bomb on a road and any unfortunate vehicle passing on the road it hit by the lethal device and a few lose their lives.

‘3 future-seekers gunned down in Baluchistan’ is the heading I read today (Mon 5^th November 2012) in The Nation which obliged me to pen is truly horrible to read and to me perhaps even a lunatic will not do like someone did.  The poor and ill fated three men were aspiring to go to Europe via Iran which is a gateway in any case and these men were waiting for a bus near Pakistan-Iran border in Kech district to board on a passenger bus when unknown men just came out from somewhere, shot them down and fled off on their motorcycles. What could be the psyche of the butchers, may I dare ask? The three had come from as far as Punjab and they were killed in Balochistan which itself proves that there was no enmity and or dispute between the killers and those killed so why did they kill? Had the poor been well off in Pakistan, I am dead sure that they had not thought of being smuggled and endanger their lives. What benefit, if any, the butchers got by killing the three poor people? No group has so far come forward to boast of that they have been behind the killing on the three persons.

It is really very high time and our security forces shall have to come forward and confront such like butchers but in case if still they just keep shut their eyes, I do not wish but can foresee that the killing will become more fashionable and who knows the unchecked vagabonds may target our security forces in the larger scenario of fashion. Who can put a full stop, not a comma, to fashion killing or passion killing in my beloved Pakistan which is officially called as Islamic Republic of Pakistan is my question to be answered by not only by our honorable federal interior minister but provincial home ministers as well?

Iqbal Hadi Zaidi / Kuwait