Pashtuns’ whammy: When you are a victim and a terrorist simultaneously

Dilawar Khan, my cousin, was standing in the door of his room at home.

A stray bullet came and pierced his chest. He fell into the lap of his sister. Since curfew was imposed, therefore, he couldn’t be taken to hospital. Eventually he bled to death in the arms of his sister. My aunt has left smiling, and living, from that day. He was 17 years old.

Mehboob Ali, my age-fellow, a good bowler and a bad singer,  once hit me in the face with a full-toss while I was batting. From that day on I was afraid of batting against him. He joined police force. Taliban warned him to leave police. He declared that he had left police and started to work in a medical store of his elder brother. One evening in Ramzan of 2009, he was rushing to home on motorcycle with Ahmad Ali, his elder brother, someone opened firing at them. Mehboob died on the spot, Ahmad Ali succumbed to injuries next morning. Their father was a rubber seller.

Ahmad Ali used to be a laborer in Karachi and continued his education at the same time. He saved money, got some medicine diploma, came back home and opened a medicine store. He had been nursing beautiful dreams yet his dreams remained unaccomplished for he lost his life to terrorism. He was 32 years old. Mehboob was 23 years old.

Bakht Baidar, a friend of my elder brother used to make fun of my hair and used to make parody of different actors. He would borrow books from me. He joined police in 2010. He was assigned as a security staffer to a member of peace council. Last year when that elder was attacked, Bakht Baidar died while protecting him.
He left a 2 years old beautiful daughter.
He was 36 years old.

For you, the victims of terrorism may be just a matter of numbers, statistics, nevertheless, for us, Pashtuns are  humans. People close to us, near to us, part of our lives are taken away by terrorists and terrorism from us. We are the first victims of terrorism. Ask any Pashtun and he will tell you how did they lost someone to terrorism. And despite our very real loss, you label us terrorists and after every terrorist attack start profiling us. What should we do? Where should we go?

By Hurmat Ali Shah