Farishta’s family must have gone through hell when they didn’t see her among themselves at aftar on 15th of May. Their already dry throats would have become more rusty after knowing about Farishta’s disappearance that day. More tragic is the fact that they kept on visiting police station to just lodge a complaint regarding her disappearance, but all that went in vain. As the police officers just shared their shoddy philosophies like suspecting the character of a ten years old girl. They laughed out the fears and complaints of Farishat’s father. And added that ‘she might have eloped with someone’.
How more one can stoop low than that? This tragic incident isn’t just an incident but depiction of our society as a whole. We don’t feel other’s pain until it happens to us. We are highly insensitive and apathetic as a nation.
On top of all that our media’s biased approach has added insult to the injuries of victim’s family. For they are declared as Afghan nationals. And by this argument our media attempted to justify this heinous act. They forget all the values that Pakistanis share when it comes to women dignity. In other words they made respecting the women conditional on nationality & ethnic identity.
Take the behaviour of our police which’s employed to protect us from monsters roaming around us. Their indifference to Farishat’s family grievances has uncovered the true face of our society as a whole. As they are among us. And they blatantly violate the very rules which they are supposed to first practically internalize in themselves. We just remain unconcerned to their wrongdoings until any Farishta is raped and murdered.
Here the attitude of politicians is also condemnable as most of them didn’t bother to even show solidarity with the grieving family, leave alone visiting them and ensuring every kind of assistance. Specifically the incumbent government remained disinterested in the case. The elected representative, Sajid Khan, from Mohmand belongs to Pakistan Tehreek-e-insaf. Even he didn’t call Farishat’s father, what to talk of other imposters in the cabinet. All that they pretend to be pro-people is a drama, no truth in their words and intentions.
All these aspects of the case exposed us as a society as our media, police and politicians are among us. They aren’t aliens. What they did to Farishta after her death is even worse than what she would have suffered before leaving this world. We need to seriously soul-search, what’s that we lack as a nation. And the response of our conscious would be ‘Character’.