Every life holds intrinsic value, it should never be a means to an end, and every time it is taken, regardless of the circumstances, it is a moral and societal failure.
Sana Yousaf’s name joins a grim, ever-growing litany of loss in Pakistan. The bullet that took her young precious life was the same bullet that exposed yet again, like many other bullets, the fatal flaw in Pakistan’s struggle against gun violence. It did not just enact a femicide, it spoke of male entitlement and its transformation to lethal force. Lethal force that was made easier by Pakistan’s torrent of illegal guns. This pervasive availability of firearms is what makes commonplace disputes a moment of irreversible carnage, and mindless violence.
This culture is one that we cannot seem to reckon with, one that is becoming an identity. Pakistan was reportedly one of the top 5 countries in the list of nations holding firearms in 2017, 44 million privately held with only 6 million registered. Years later, the silence around gun control has only grown louder.
A firearm is now a symbol of superiority, untouchability, and pride. Toxic masculinity has started associating manhood with control, which has ultimately turned enforced submission through these guns an easier way to attain this ‘masculinity’. The way it is proliferating into our houses, our celebrations, and in our dispute settlements outside of courtrooms, is without question, condemnable. Whether the justifications provided are ideological, religious, gender-based, they all fail in the face of the harrowing divine warning:
We started off with a digital cancel culture and dangerously progressed to a mortal one, where we cancel, not online, but in flesh.
“And whoever kills a believer intentionally, their recompense is Hell, to abide therein forever. And Allah’s wrath is upon them, and He has cursed them and prepared for them a tremendous punishment.” – (Surah An-Nisa 4:93)
In a report by Human Rights Commission Pakistan, at least 226 women were victims of ‘honor’ crimes during 2023, with 26 cases of mob justice where victims were lynched due to assorted reasons, religious etc. These might be numbers for readers, but not for those who mourn. While we can quantify loss through data, families struck by grief don’t care about statistics.
We started off with a digital cancel culture and dangerously progressed to a mortal one, where we cancel, not online, but in flesh.
Why has the mob become so selective in its empathy?
Why does it burn with rage on religious insults but stays put when someone deliberately violates the core principles of that very same religion, all too conveniently through the act of murder?
We riot for cartoons but not corpses.
While many of us mourn our loved ones lost to the same bullet culture, some even deprived with the courtesy of a known motive, we do so in silence. This very silence is louder than any gunshot. It is time we should move beyond condolences, do more than thoughts and prayers, rather reflection and reform. Pakistan needs a legal framework and systemic change that would regulate gun ownership.
Sana’s loss is a devastating reminder of the human cost of gun violence. We need to stop the victims from becoming statistics and figures in the tally of this violence. Every number was a human who laughed, dreamed, and was loved. The dark truth, I too know, intimately, is that gun violence does not just steal a life, it obliterates worlds.
The writer is a freelance columnist.