CRITICAL THINKING other metropolitans of the country were wrecked with havoc in the 90’s. I remember the liberty this city offered to its inhabitants, men and women alike, when its streets were filled up with families strolling late at nights, its bazars jam packed with vacationers and tourists from Punjab and other parts of Pakistan in the summer, buying carpets, crockery, dirt cheap electronic appliances and Ah! Delicious dry fruits. Its picnic spots like Hanna Lake, stunningly beautiful and full of contrastsUrakand Karkhassa valleys were a source of tourist attraction in summer for people from all around the nation. Local businesses boomed and gradually Quetta was coming at par with other metropolitans of the country, purchasing power of people was improving and a well-educated intelligentsia started to emerge which aspired to explore new frontiers. Those were the best times of my life and of any Quettian for that matter. Hope was ripe but then something Great upheaval followed and I for the first time saw widespread ethnic violence in Quetta since I became conscious of my surroundings, in the aftermath of this travesty of justice in epic proportions. Balochistan was burning and the dictator was busy in burying the body (whose presence in the coffin is still ambiguous) of Nawab Sahib along The Rationalist
with many other secrets. Those were strange times; the people I held dearest to my heart started becoming aliens and ignoring me because of my ethnicity. I remember an incident with one of my best friends at school. He had suddenly started attending public gatherings of SardarAkhter Jan Mengal, who now seems to have the softest core take on Balochistan issue, but in the absence of radical separatist forces like Balochistan Republican Party (BRP) and Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF), Balochistan National Movement (BNM) those days, his Balochistan National Party (Mengal) was the most rigid voice from the province. When I along with another ethnically Punjabi speaking friend asked about the proceedings of the public gathering out of general curiosity once, his response was blunt and cold as ice, “why would I tell two Punjabis about the happenings at our Jalsa, So that you guys could spy on us for the agencies?”- [incidents of target killings had not gained momentum by then]. For two 13 years old kids that meant a great deal to hear from their closest friend. I am still perplexed when I attempt to contemplate that how could such an immense amount of hate be induced into the mind of a 13 year old, which makes him loathe his own best friends. This was the turning point,
lines were drawn. You were either with the “oppressors” or with the Baloch national cause (that happened to be freedom), neutrality meant silent support of the oppressors-which most Punjabis adopted (this was a huge mistake as I will reflect upon at the end). Initially, Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) started to drop manifestos giving two choices to Punjabis; either give your daughters in marriages to locals or leave Balochistan. There was no third choice, only the absent announcement of certain death in the event of failing to select from any of the two choices. Soon after, target killings started. None was spared; barber shops became the favorite killing fields for the killers because they normally housed labor from Punjab. Afterwards many lower middle class school teachers were targeted and killed. The statements claiming responsibility (claiming killing trophies) after each of these killings came from an “undisclosed location via satellite phone” and the addressee would usually be newspaper offices. The excuse for each act of slaughter would be the same, “They were killed because they were spying for Pakistani secret agencies” and every time I used to hear this I fell deep into the bitter memories from the past of my 13 years old Mengal friend telling me, he can’t tell me about the happenings in a public October-December 2012
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