To Mourn or Not To Mourn

Some first-hand experiences from Karachi on the night of Benazir's assassination

It started as a normal day in Karachi. I decided to visit the crowded city-center and had almost finished shopping around Maghrib prayer (6pm). The market was far from slowing down as Eid-ul-Azha was just over. I heard a man in the market saying "Benazir is killed, close down the shop". I first thought it was a rumour, but in few seconds people started running in panic and the shops started shutting down. Less than five minutes later, the M.A.Jinnah Road that was bustling with life and business was filled with panic and darkness. Some shop-owners told me that they had never seen such panic and instant shutdown before.

It took us 4 hours to reach home instead of a typical 1-hour journey. Thankfully we had a car, but we had to take several detours, encounter traffic jams, drive over broken glass, cool down our over-heated car... finally, less than kilometer away from home, we were in front of a serious arson and there was no safe way to proceed in car. We let our driver (with other friends) go take a different route and ourselves (my brother and I) started to walk through dark alleys, looking behind us rising clouds of black smoke. We reached home and found some relatives and family friends taking refuge there. Everyone I talked to since then has a different story of reaching home (some even ran through cross-fires).

There was no sign of law-enforcement agencies throughout our journey, not oven traffic police! Had there not those guys on the roads voluntarily controlling traffic by risking their lives, people would've to spend whole night in the cars being stuck in worst traffic jams of city's history.

Having seen complete chaos, thugs started looting hoards of pedestrians of their money and mobile phones. I met a man who told me that he was resisting giving up his phone; the hooligans beat him. There were rumours of poisoning of water from source, but water-board spokesman on television quickly cleared these rumours.

In this time of pandemonium, nice gestures are also not scarce. People who were unable to reach home that fateful night stayed in houses of relatives and even mosques. Our mosque appealed for food and blankets and it was poured with help. The near-by "Pathan hotel" brought trays full of bread and people brought blankets and pillows. People later left next morning walking miles and miles as there still was (and is) no public transport. Like the guys were controlling traffic, some people were giving water to people stuck in traffic. Many warned us of dangerous roads ahead. Almost everyone was talking to someone on mobile phone giving and taking directions of safer routes.

While the event in Rawalpindi is sad, the events that followed in other parts of the country are even more disturbing. There are some gestures of humanity in the middle of looters and angry protestors. Some are shocked at the death of this remarkable woman, for others its only a long-predicted end of a corrupt politician. To mourn or not to mourn, this is the question of today in Pakistan.