Name: Saleem Shahzad
Age: 40
Age: 40
Profession: Journalist
Crime: advocated truth
Saleem Shahzad, a journalist for the world, but an indispensable support for his family was murdered brutally some days after being abducted while on his way to a local channel for interview. Shahzad, a father of three, was a correspondent of an online service ‘Asia Times Online’ and an Italian news agency Adnkronos. He was known to have revealed some clandestine heinous relations between the defenders of our country and a well known terrorist organization. The country’s well revered sacred cows are finding themselves accused for this act and this seriously spells trouble. What next, Pakistan is now known to be the world’s most dangerous country for journalists with 16 journalists brutally murdered in just 14 months. Mr Prime Minister! Simply making a statement of bringing the culprits to the book cannot suffice, some measures need to be taken to satisfy our perturbed senses and insecure souls. The nation is hungry for a show of honesty and rationality. But while this nation is finding it ever harder to have a peaceful night sleep, its rulers seem to be lost, deep in the cozy roller coasters of their dreamlands. Can there be light for us? For we are in dire need of it, this darkness is suffocating us dead. Strange it all seems, when I see the world celebrating the killing of “The Most Wanted Perpetrator” in our part of the world and hurling innumerable allegations at our agencies, our security system, our government and our intelligence network and at the same time brazenly ignoring the multitude of sacrifices and the tremendous price this nation has paid and is paying in fighting this war on TERROR. Accepted that it was a lapse of security, integrity and patriotism on part of our authorities but what of the nation? The so called terror ridden and hence abnormally sensitized world community has plethora of kind words for those afflicted by the tyrannous regimes of the middle east but NONE for us! Instead we are being conveniently painted as anti- American!
How it feels to be the son of a father who got shot dead for speaking the truth or who got mistakenly killed because of an attack by the unmanned aerial vehicle cannot in any way be fathomed by any one of us! Thanks God we are still not the direct victims of this unmindful USE OF FORCE! But for how long? Our silence will soon envelope the whole nation, its time we wake up!
Unilateral and indiscriminate Use of Force, can never be a solution or else IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN would have been peaceful today. What are the world powers aiming at? Why do they want to try the same old ugly strategies again? Simply changing the canvas will not work, when the colors and the theme remains the same, we cannot expect a different conclusion.
We are a peace loving nation, we accept our shortcomings and are cognizant of the problems and threats staring us in the face, but this is no way of helping us. We want solutions too but that which are capable of producing a durable and sustainable peace. We wholeheartedly acknowledge the monetary and sundry help the world rendered to us all these years and in times of distress (floods and earthquake) but a true understanding of the dangers that plague us is all we ask for to resolve this GLOBAL problem.
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