Missing Persons' Avalanche

Shocking! And unbelievably sad!

The avalanche enveloping the army camp of Gyari, Siachin, is one of the saddest episodes I have witnessed in my life. I was totally speechless when I heard the news. I did not want to do so, but my mind kept imagining how it would have been. It is said that the avalanche hit the army camp around four o’clock in the morning. I thought to myself; perhaps some soldier would have gotten up at that time to say the Fajr prayers. And while he would have been in prayer, he would have heard the howling and eerie sound of the approaching avalanche. I could imagine it because I had heard the sound of an avalanche in a short film presented on GEO TV about avalanches. What would have been the feelings of that soldier in prayers? Or perhaps some soldier would have awakened within his igloo after the avalanche had hit. Perhaps the igloo had not caved in at the moment of the hit and the soldier, unaware of the calamity outside, would have sought to step out as he did so every morning, only to find the igloo entrance blocked! He would have thought, ‘Oh, it is a bit of an ice…!’, but when he pushed against it, he was pushing against an eighty feet high avalanche block! Can you imagine? It is the height of a six-storey building. I feel nostalgia even as I think about it. Imagine that moment for the soldier! Imagine the feeling of suffocation before the actual suffocation began. Imagine his blood running cold at the thought of death. Imagine him thinking of his family at the thought of death. Imagine him, waiting for death…

My heart goes out to the families of these soldiers. I can empathize with their desperation, wistfulness and human helplessness. I can hear the silent screams ‘Somebody, somebody please get my father out from below the avalanche! Somebody, somebody please lift this unbelievable block of avalanche! Oh, is this a terrible nightmare? Where is the technology? Oh no! Is there no technology strong enough to unfold an avalanche this big? …………..God? Where are you? Can you please send someone down here from up there? Oh God, oh God, I do not know who to beg to? Oh Allah, have Mercy…’

And then, embarrassedly, we had to look towards the superior America for help. They sent a team of eighteen to help with the rescue operation. However, today I heard in news that there is no technology yet to deal with this kind of disaster.

Nevertheless, Major General Athar Abbas, spokesperson ISPR, was heard saying, ‘We will do and show all we can do, for we are answerable to the families of these soldiers…’ And, General Ashfaq P. Kayani has said, ‘The hunt will go on till the last soldier is discovered…’ Excellent. These feelings are very honorable.

What would you say if I told you that there is a secret technology in reserve, such that that if it was used, all the near-buried soldiers under the avalanche would immediately become free, free to be back with their families and free to live again?

What would your feelings be for the person who was intentionally not using this secret technology, because another country had issued orders not to? And this person was eating dollars to obey their orders against his own people?

Well, there is a phenomena running within Pakistan (and the entire Muslim world), which is similar to the catastrophic avalanche. This is the phenomena of Missing Persons due to the so-called war-on-terror. Thousands of Muslims are buried under the avalanche of illegal, uninformed and enforced detention. They are in physical, mental and emotional torture just like those soldiers up there. Their families are desperate just like the families of these soldiers. Families of the Siachin soldiers are begging God for mercy, but can you imagine the humiliation of the families of Missing Persons that they have to beg human beings, our own authorities, for mercy?

Rest assured, these families will also go on in their struggle, till the last Missing Person is discovered, for if they are bonded by profession then these people are bonded by blood ties. And if they are answerable to the families of those soldiers…excuse me, but are not our authorities answerable to us citizens as well, who pay taxes and look towards the state for the basic human right of security?

And the secret technology in reserve is none other than Allah’s Mercy in the snow avalanche disaster, while the secret technology in the case of Missing Persons is one simple Executive Order of Release by the Pakistani authorities.

Will the Pakistani authorities use this simple technology to end the misery of Missing Person’s avalanche and invoke Allah’s Mercy for the Siachin disaster, or will we continue to flounder in our blindness and grope for dollars?

My heartache and prayers continues for both, the Missing Persons and their families and the Siachin soldiers and their families, for I am a Muslim whose loyalties lie with Allah and the national interest of Islam and not with any foreign country and some confused, self-deceptive and sinful notion of mutual interests.