Public passions pour in Pabbi protests

By Afzal Hussain Bokhari

Just when the reporters of local newspapers had filed their major stories of the day to the sub-editors on Saturday and were preparing to slip away to join back their families for the evening meal and relish the flavour of the weekend relaxation, the office phones wailed and television channels broke the news that almost had the makings of becoming the banner headline of the major broadsheets the next day. After offering the 'Asr' prayers in his native Khan Sher Garhi, 27-year-old Mian Raashid Hussain, the only son of Mian Iftikhar Hussain, Minister of Information and Public Relations in the violence-hit Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, was on his way to the local stadium in Pabbi. Accompanying him to the sports club was cousin Mian Amjad, son of Iftikhar's sister. Walking along the railway track, as the two young cousins reached Farm Koroona near Mohalla Hajiabad, they were intercepted by unidentified men on a motorbike. The interceptors pumped four bullets into Raashid's head and three in Amjad's legs thus killing the former on the spot while leaving the latter with grievous injuries.

The news of the target killing spread like wild fire and having instant access to the airwaves the vans carrying reporters and cameramen of various television channels sped towards Pabbi, a sprawling town on GT Road, the constituency of Mian Iftikhar Hussain. Within minutes the television channels beamed the images of the victims into homes throughout the world. With his badly fractured skull wrapped down to chin, the dead body of Raashid lay in Pabbi Emergency Satellite Complex.

The aggrieved provincial minister of information normally used to admonish the daily newspapers that he felt tended to 'play up' the incidents of terrorism like the one that occurred near Meena Bazaar in Charvi Koban. As the hard luck would have it, he probably had the first-hand knowledge of how militancy shattered the human psyche and why it occasionally needed to be played up. In the Pabbi hospital, the minister looked at the dead body of his beloved son and grimaced in pain. Overcome with emotion, he could not even properly attend to the phone call from Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani who rang up to personally offer a few words of condolence. Flanked by Senator Afrasiab Khan Khattak and Senior Minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour, Mian Iftikhar squatted on synthetic green prayer mats in the nearby mohalla mosque to receive the guests that arrived to offer words of sympathy.

As far as the target killing of Raashid was concerned, even the worst political foes of Mian Iftikhar Hussain would accede to the fact that his son probably did not deserve the treatment meted out to him on Saturday evening. Being a down-to-earth man, the ministerial status of the father had not gone to his head. Having graduated from Edwardes College, Peshawar, Raashid did his Master's in Political Science from Government Post-Graduate College, Nowshera. Motivated by his father in 2006, Raashid briefly worked as intern in Peshawar bureau of the Dawn newspaper.

Some time back when City Development and Municipal Department (CD&MD) set up its Building Control Authority (BCA) and promoted chief officer Imtiaz Saleem Gandapur to the post of BCA's first director, Raashid was taken as assistant director. On alternate days, he used to go to his village Garhi Sher Khan and interact with friends and relatives with the same old sincerity and humbleness. His funeral in one of Pabbi's educational institutions on Sunday was largely attended by relatives, friends, party activists and local acquaintances. The messages of condolences continue to pour in from social and political circles.

We can well imagine that worst affected by Raashid's pre-mature death is clearly his only sister who will have no one to call as her brother. Mian Iftikhar had married off his daughter and was preparing to get Raashid married too. For this purpose, he was constructing for him a separate new house. The house may be completed sooner or later but those with parental feelings can realise the state of mind of the minister who will passionately miss its intended occupant.

Statements by ANP activists claimed that some leaders had been receiving threats from militants. On some occasions in the past, Senator Afrasiab Khattak and Mian Iftikhar have separately alleged that suicide bombers stood behind them when they put their signatures to the document that proclaimed Islamic Shariah in three districts of the volatile Malakand division. In simple words, they meant that an approval was elicited out of them with loaded guns pointed to their temples.

Reports indicated that up to late on Saturday night, no FIR was lodged with the local police by anyone. One television channel, however, reported that after recording the statement of the wounded Mian Amjad, police on its own registered an FIR under serial number 691 on behalf of Mian Amjad. Sadly enough, some elements tried to use the occasion to drive a wedge between ANP and its coalition partner PPP. Correspondent of a private television channel, for instance, reported from Pabbi that until early on Saturday night not a single person from PPP had reportedly arrived to share the grief and offer some measure of solace.     

Those who met Mian Iftikhar Hussain in the middle of his psychological trauma found him to be a stoic and brave Pukhtun nationalist. Party workers can recall how the Federal Minister for Railways, Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, nearly half died when his only son, Shabbir Ahmad Bilour, was killed some years back in a gun battle fought against the supporters of PPP MPA late Syed Qamar Abbas outside a polling station in Yakkatoot. The stoicism shown by Mian Iftikhar Hussain in facing an identical tragedy reminded the mourners of lines from Munir Niazi: "Janta hoon aik aisay shakhs ko bhi ey Munir; Gham se pathar ho gaya lekin kabhi roya nahin!"