JAMMU: The essence of iconic dialogue –“Itna Sannata Kyun Hai Bhai!” — rendered by Kashmir’s versatile actor A. K Hangal as Rahim Chacha in Sholay must have filled the grim ambience in Peshawar sub-urbs when 122 coffins with young students reached before their parents. The boys must not have even thought in their wildest dreams that those shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) could be the mercenaries of death. And, the parents must still be wondering over the meaning of Jihad they had not learned all their lives.
The Peshawar carnage has brought out several skeletons from the closet. Most wanted international terrorist Hafiz Saeed has condemned this mayhem by stating that “Islam was a religion of peace and harmony and never taught us to kill innocent children and women even in the war”. How will he explain killing of 164 people, including women and children, in the Mumbai mayhem of 2008 that left the world grieving and shrieking.
Pakistan’s Army and its civil administration stand exposed for condemning the barbaric act that owes its genesis somewhere in the corridors of power in the rogue nation. So are exposed the Kashmiri separatists, who took lead this morning across the Valley in organising funeral prayers in absentia for the young boys, lost in the din of Jihadi yells. Syed Ali Geelani was obviously the man of the occasion to lead such prayers. How will he, or Mirwaiz Umar, or Yasin Malik, or Shabbir Shah justify the condemnation and prayers in absentia when they have all along the past 25 years eulogized terrorists as Jihadis. Didn’t they organise similar prayer in absentia for the terrorists responsible for several killings of innocent Kashmiris, no matter how old they were or the gender they belonged? Yasin Malik prays to Almighty Allah to bestow those martyred (school children) with Jannat and punish those (Taliban Jihadis) who butchered these innocents.” What is his take on the children of those Air Force personnel who fell to bullets in Srinagar on one of the fateful mornings of January 1990, who had promised their children to return back in the evening? Malik is reported to have admitted his role in the carnage.
How long shall this hypocrisy prevail in the Valley of gloom that has lost lots of sons and daughters in pursuit of Jihad. How long shall Kashmir tolerate the bigots who seem to have decided to put the Valley in eternal darkness where everyone is left to shriek—Itna Sanata Kyon Hai.
