As we teed off on the first hole, a politician friend of mine said, you “tried to kill a journalist.” I had retired not long ago. “We didn’t.” I retorted. “The military is not so inefficient that it would fail to kill a man had it wanted to.” That was out of sheer conviction. As it turned out, it was not us. When a notorious religious extremist was killed in Musharraf’s days in Chur Chowk, his car was targeted from both sides; no one blamed the military. I knew we had done it, as firing from opposite sides to avoid disaster can only be entrusted to experts. An act performed must betray the actor.
At D-Chowk, a naive Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi had no gunpowder, only Dentonic powder. The wise civilian friends on social media could never perceive the difference.
If memory serves me right, the military, an infantry company, was employed on the explicit instructions of the then chief minister (KP) as the GOC and his brigade commanders were out on exercise and could not be contacted. It was, for the first and the last time in history, that the military had opened fire on an innocent protesting crowd at Barbara village near Peshawar, in August 1948. Around 500 Pashtuns were martyred and thrice more injured. It was the most tragic incident for which history would never forgive the chief minister. Knowing the chief minister well, I am sure he did not understand what he had bargained for. But the deed was done, and he could not be absolved of the terrible responsibility.
The PTI confirms 12 dead, and some put the figure at 16. Whatever the number, a pure civilian Naqvi had enough firepower available for this and much more. The army was not needed for this measly task at all. I am not being inhuman. I am fully aware of the Quranic injunction: “Whoever kills a soul (innocent)… it is as if he had killed all of mankind”. (5:32) Mine is only a professional assessment.
The only time the military fired on the civilians was during the massacre at Barbara. In erstwhile East Pakistan, the military had acted against a well-equipped and trained Mukti Bahini and the dissident East Pakistan Regiment and East Pakistan Rifles units, where all the West Pakistani officers and families had been martyred by their former comrades. During Bhutto’s rule, the army refused to fire on the civilians in Lahore. Two outstanding brigadiers had to lose their jobs by refusing the order. In D-Chowk, the crowds had greeted the army troops like their heroes, taking selfies with them. I have said all this to convince social media wiz-kids that the army was not to blame for this gory incident. The Triple One Brigade is meant to defend against at least a division of the enemy army, not poor, unarmed civilians.
My recently retired son, Brigadier Abid, visited Rawalpindi and met with his colleagues, who are now senior army officers. He returned wholly sold on the narrative that the entire social media is based on utter falsehood and that the mainstream media is the one to be solely trusted. This is the problem with our present generation. It needs balance and objectivity. Closing eyes and ears to the opponents deprives them of a balanced outlook. They see only one side of the coin.
The coin has a flipside, which is also a reality of how mutilated it might be. The senior officers must be able to sift through the details, they are taught early in their careers. During the noise and din of battle, horrible defeat becomes your destiny if you cannot sift details. A good battlefield commander must pick what is relevant and discard mere distractions. It enables him to focus his thoughts and resources in the right direction. Manstien, the great German general, was able to convert a rout into an organized and respectable withdrawal from the Russian front. Liddell Hart laments in vain: “Why do we not learn from history?”
The mainstream media is fully occupied with Atta Ullah Tarar, whose repulsive demeanor and brash manners are impossible to stomach. He demands a well-documented video to prove the opposition’s contention at D-Choke. Against this backdrop of a chattering Information Minister and quick-to-draw belligerent Interior Minister, would it be possible for the media to take notice of the Parachinar carnage? If not, please at least blame the army for nothing.
Social media can boast of wise men like Haroon Rashid, Mushahid Hussain Syed, and Dr Moeed Pirzada, even if he is the most hated individual by the present government. In contrast, the mainstream media, under fear or greed, can hardly claim men who dare to speak the truth.
This is primarily because it has to give comprehensive coverage to the politicians who seldom tell the truth. They tell incredible lies and propound contemptuous narratives. It is the opposite of my son’s recently formed perception. The mainstream media is all rubbish, as it produces what it is fed ‘garbage in and garbage out’, social media has some truth if you know who to read and who to reject at the outset. Again, it is a matter of sifting details.
Imagine more or less 12 or 16 dead and ten times more wounded and missing compared to the sheer carnage at Parachinar. The deaths are confirmed in hundreds on both sides of the divide; as usual, the Shiites, an outnumbered minority, remain at the receiving end. Not an eyebrow raised, nor a condemnation uttered, even in words as a forgettable formality.
Imran Khan might not be aware of the tragedy. What about the big mouths of PTI? To top it all, the Chief Minister himself displays a total lack of sensitivity; the other humanists, Aitzaz Ahsan, the wise advocate; Salman Akram Raja, the sober saint; the brash Sher Afzal Marwat or the soft-spoken Barrister Gohar or Omer Ayub, who belong to KP. Any PML (N) or PPP Stalwart? How do we explain this inhumanness?
The mainstream media is fully occupied with Atta Ullah Tarar, whose repulsive demeanor and brash manners are impossible to stomach. He demands a well-documented video to prove the opposition’s contention at D-Choke. Against this backdrop of a chattering Information Minister and quick-to-draw belligerent Interior Minister, would it be possible for the media to take notice of the Parachinar carnage? If not, please at least blame the army for nothing.
