The May 12 Mayhem in Karachi was certainly deplorable: killing by rival political parties' workers deserve to be condemned in the strongest terms. And so is the terrorism in parts of frontier province against our troops and innocent civilians. But one is shocked at the divergence in the treatment of the two matters by the opposition political parties.
Even though the May 12 matter is before the Sindh High Court which has been enquiring into it by taking suo moto notice and the petitions filed in the case by the opposition parties, particularly a religious party and another Pakhtoon based one, have been vying with each other in putting the entire blame on a single party, arid in their sickening and one-sided diatribe they could not 'hide their strong bias against that party.
But today when innocent civilians and our army and para-military troops are being killed by the terrorists or the so called Pakistani Taliban in the NWFP and the tribal areas, the opposition parties, especially those of the right who are also in the government in that province, have not raised the same voice in protest. On the contrary, they are busy trying to find excuse for the unpardonable crimes of the terrorists against the citizens and state of Pakistan. They have no words of praise and prayer for our valiant jawans who have been martyred in the incidents of terrorism in Frontier.
Here one is reminded of a much bigger and far more cruel massacre of innocent people in this very city of Karachi not very long ago. It was during the regime of General Ziaul Haq when over 300 innocent citizens including women and children were brutally slaughtered.
They were carrying no arms, they had not come out to stage a show of strength: most of them were sitting inside their homes, some were getting ready to go to work and their children to schools, when all of a sudden, marauders - men of the Sohrab Goth drug mafia attacked their houses in Aligarh and Qasba Colonies.
In less than an hour, 300 men, women and children, lay dead in the streets or in their houses. They had broken no law, they were never told what was their crime. Their only 'fault' was that they spoke a different language than the drug mafia.
President Ziaul Haq was leaving Karachi for Bangkok that day. He did not change his programme. There was the army and the police: the Maulvis and the newspapers were also there.
But there was no mourning, no question asked; there was no chorus of condemnation as we hear today even on very minor incidents. One nation's conscience was even more dead than General Zia's, not one person was arrested.
Karachi's innocent and helpless citizens quietly buried their dead, as they had done the victims of an earlier massacre of a bloody day of Pakistan's history. On one side was a dictator and on the other the sister of the Founder of Pakistan. It was a test of nation's conscience. It was a fight between right and wrong. There were big meetings and rallies.
Many people vowed to support Madar-e-Millat against the Dictator. But when the time came only the people of Karachi stood with her just as they had fought for independence shoulder to shoulder with the Quaid-e-Azam. The people of Karachi were then made to pay for opposing the Dictator.
His son celebrated the father's victory by leading an armed rally to storm Liaquatabad which had cast largest number of votes for the Quaid's sister. A drug peddler of Liaquat Basti was among those leading the rally with guns in his both hands, he was firing at the people to celebrate the dictator's victory.
At Gujar Nala, the marauders set on fire a poor basti in which dozens of women and children were burnt to death. Madar-e-Millat was in tears while the dictator's supporters celebrated his victory by shedding the blood of the poor.
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