Baptizing Our Failures with Martyrs’ Sacred Blood

Whenever time tried to test us, none of us hesitated even for a moment in risking our life for sake of the country and the countrymen. Following are a few of the examples of selflessness, bravery and gallantry of our people from all walks of life to re-affirm our resolve, defiance and resilience against all odds.

·         Pervaiz Masif (2009), a Christian Pakistani, lost his life while intercepting a suicide bomber who was going to attack the women campus of the IIU, Islamabad where 300 – 400 female students were present

·         Samiya Noreen (2013), a lady teacher, lost her life while rescuing the children from a burning van in Rajeki, Gujrat

·         Nasrullah Shajee (2014), a former lawmaker of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and the party’s sitting deputy chief for Karachi, drowned while trying to save his drowning student in the Kunhar River at Balakot

·         Aitzaz Hassan Bangash (2014), a 15-year-old Braveheart of Hangu, lost his life while intercepting a suicide bomber at the gate of his school where more than 200 children were present 

·         Tahira Qazi (2014), the Principal of the Army Public School, Peshawar, lost her life in a desperate attempt to save as much children as she could

·         Akash Bashir (2015), a Christian Pakistani, lost his life while intercepting a suicide bomber at the gate of a Church in Youhanabad, Lahore

·         Saim (2018), a 12 years old kid who used to work in a tuck shop with his father in Muzaffarabad. When he saw dozens of students enjoying passionately on an old and weak wooden bridge over the river, he ran to warn them to not exceed the limit.  The touring students fell down in the river when the bridge broke. Saim too, lost his life in an attempt to rescuer 12 drowning students

·         Iftikhar Wahid (2020), a security guard from Dir, intercepted terrorists at the main entrance of Pakistan Stock Exchange in Karachi. He could have saved his life but he was courage enough to hold them at the gate before they could cause serious damage

·         Suleman Khan (2020), a young resident of Kuchlak (Balochistan), made more than 50 trips during extremely challenging weather calamity and rescued over 100 people stranded and trapped in a snowstorm

·         Muhammad Faisal (2022), a driver, drove away a burning oil tanker on Quetta's Qambrani Road to save hundreds of lives

·         Atta Ullah Luni (2022), rescued 05 people from flash floods in Balochistan’s Loralai district

The same selflessness, bravery, gallantry and courage have been even more exemplary among the officers, soldiers and personnel of Security and Law Enforcement Agencies, be it Army, Intelligence, Rangers, FC, Police, Fire Brigade, Rescue 1122 or other emergency rescue and response contingents. The nation will always be greatly indebted to every single one of them for their sacrifice for sake of the country and the countrymen. To embrace death is the ultimate and the greatest of all sacrifices – anyone can ever make.  The destiny and the future of nations depends upon the collective sacrifices of its individuals. However, it should be a point of grave concern for the state, undoubtedly, if its people keep making the greatest but avoidable sacrifice – that too, without any cause.

Let’s recall a few jailbreaks by militants excluding other terror attacks like the ones on Manawan Police Centre, GHQ, Mehran Base, Prade Lane Mosque, dozens of attacks on posts and convoys of military, police and FC and attacks on public places etc.

·         July, 2003 – 03 civil judges and 05 prisoners were killed and 02 judges critically wounded inside the Sialkot district jail when police raided the prison to free 10 judges taken hostage by the prisoners

·         April, 2012 – more than 200 heavily armed TTP militants travelling in several vehicles attacked the Central Jail in Bannu, releasing more than 400 prisoners, including some high profile / hardcore TTP terrorists, in a pre-dawn assault. Among them, was a former Pakistan Air Force technician, Adnan Rashid, convicted of an assassination attempt on former president Pervez Musharraf

·         July, 2013 – Dozens of heavily-armed TTP insurgents freed nearly 175 inmates, including 35 ‘high-profile militants’, during a brazen overnight attack on the central jail in Dera Ismail Khan

·         December, 2022 – detained TTP militants inside a CTD facility, situated in Bannu Cantonment, took over its compound, held interrogators hostage and demanded safe evacuation to Afghanistan. A rescue mission was launched to free the hostages and neutralize the terrorists. There are contradictory reports about the number of casualties. However, the whole building has been razed to the grounds, all 33 terrorists have been killed and 03 of our SSGs embraced martyrdom during the operation

(Several technicalities and professional aspects of planning and execution of this operation can be questioned, however, doing so would deviate us from the essence of this write-up)

Jailbreaks and hostage situations, in general, are the result of absolute intelligence and security failures. The saga of jailbreaks in Pakistan after 2002 isn’t just intelligence and security failures (though, we prefer to sugar-coat and tone down this word as ‘security lapse’) – it is the proof of incapability of learning from own mistakes in past, laxity and inefficiency of our intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies. It also raises genuine concerns about their training and professional proficiencies.  

It leaves me in pain and agony to note our heartless, brutal and insensitive attitude of covering our blunders and failures under the sacred and noble status of martyrdom. No voice is raised for professional, scientific and technical analysis of such failures (or security lapses if this word keeps you calm) that can compel the competent authorities to find and fix the causes of these failures to avoid them in future. We keep beating the drums of bravery, courage and gallantry of our martyrs so loudly that such voices, if raised from anywhere, are drowned in the noise. We keep beating the drums of unnecessary and exaggerated glorification of our martyrs until a new tragedy results in some new martyrs. It would be a terrible joke if anyone claims that self-analysis and self-accountability is done. Because, if it was so, these tragedies would not have happened again and again.

In case of any security and intelligence failure – or lapse – whenever and wherever in the world, those identified as responsible are held accountable. Faults, grey areas, loopholes and weakness are fixed and the security of the citizens is ensured to a foolproof level. Is the blood of our sons, daughters and children so cheap that it can be spilled anywhere, anytime for no reason? Will we never learn from past mistakes to correct ourselves and will continue repeating those mistakes over and over again? Why is it so difficult to avoid an easily avoidable?

Do whatever you want! But, for God's sake, let’s not disrespect the martyrs so much that we begin to baptize our absolute failure, sheer incompetence and obvious negligence with their sacred blood.

Hassan Saleem Awan

December 22, 2022