Haspataal puhancha day yar, mujhay haspataal tau puhancha day’

Sarfaraz Shah, a youth died in hope for mercy.

by Sonia Wahab

These are the last words of Sarfaraz Shah, murdered in cold blood by six paramilitary rangers in Karachi. There is very little known to us that how this video was shot so closely and how it got a chance to spread so quickly through electronic media. Usually, the military incidents are kept highly confidential from public viewing and most of the time any activity of military rangers is never made available to the public media. It is becoming harder with the emerging advanced technology to control the information recording tools. The recording of Sarfarz Shah’s daylight murder is an alarming point for our institutions to consider their actions as the evidence can be made available. Now the technology has empowered people to share their views and bring their realities forefront.

The incident recorded clearly shows that six people from Pakistan paramilitary rangers who were fully armed, captured a young boy and on gun point they forced him to get in to an open space of the park. In this complete footage of 1 minute and 20 seconds Sarfarz Shah seemed begging for his life and fluttering like a Qurbani ka Bakra. The killers had no emotions on their faces and it seemed as if they all knew what they had to do. I don’t know the reason why this video clip reminded me exactly the time when every year we sacrifice animals on Eid day. I could feel a similar sense of determination and power in those eyes of butcher and those who force the animal lie down and then say ‘takbeer’. The nervousness and screams of Sarfarz were exactly like an animal who knows that there is no escape but one could at least beg for mercy. The scene of blood showering on the floor and a living body writhing in pain is not very unfamiliar to us. We see once every year how the animal bleed to death and in the mean while the butchers just stand there and wait when the animal shudder its body as a last sign of life. The surrounding is just filled with painful scream and nobody steps forward for help…

The last words of Sarfaraz Shah uttered in pain get recorded in the camera and we could hear and see that the young boy struggled for life until last few moments of his life. He still had hope that the killers had shot not to kill him and he could be saved with some quick medical aid. The last few seconds of the video ends with his cries for mercy to take him at least to the hospital and then he collapses on the ground all filled with his blood… again it resembles a site of animal sacrificed who could still smell the stench of its own fresh blood and perhaps expects mercy from those who stands there and watch the show.

According to the reports, Sarfaraz Shah was escaping from the rangers after committing some robbery. The military rangers caught him and the directives given were to shoot the criminals on the spot. In a media report it has been clarified by a military official that no man of rangers could shoot an unarmed man and the only fatal shot would be in their self-defense. In this clip Sarfaraz Shah is unarmed and visibly asking for mercy for life before bullet shots and then for medical aid before dying. The animals of sacrifice have no rights to life and medical aid when they are on alter, but at least human beings should be given this last chance. There are just little differences that separate crime and criminals from law and justice. We quite often forget to abhor crime not the criminal knowing the fact that capital punishments are still practiced in our system of law and justice. As I have learned from the lessons of civilization, the value of life and human blood is never so cheap. Although I know that we honor death in certain circumstances but life in itself is a biggest honor bestowed upon every living being with complete rights on it. I agree that sometimes human beings are vicious in taking this chance from others, but what difference lies if we still practice a decadent principle of a life for a life. As a nation we have seen a lot of bloodshed and have wasted many lives in just honoring death. I think that we should learn now that there is nothing valuable than a human being’s life and we should stop valorizing death in any form.

Posted in: Original Article, Politics, Religion, Society