No shoulder to cry on!

Islamabad
He was in deep thoughts when I entered into his hospital room. He was staring at the ceiling. I noticed tears in his eyes. It seems that he was missing someone close to share his grief and take shelter in someone’s sympathetic arms.
No doubt, mothers are a symbol of love, affection and protection, but for him all such feelings relating to the motherhood have lost meaning.
The eleven-year-old boy, who sustained bullet injuries from the pistol of his mother, was the focus of my attention and I could feel numerous queries in his eyes. He was in that age bracket when all feelings and emotions are associated with parents. He was lying on the hospital bed with a storm in his heart and mind and it was quite odd and difficult for him to narrate the situation he was passing through.
Despite all this, I tried to gauge the situation which was creating a storm in him by asking different questions to him. In the crime world different news stories keep emerging, but they lose their worth and importance with the passage of time. Sometimes news grabs our attention and leaves multiple questions to be answered by society in which we live in.
The news concerning the little boy was among those that exposed bitter and cruel realities of our society. The incident was odd in a sense because it was a sequel to serious differences between a man and his wife.
In this incident, a woman committed suicide by killing her husband and three daughters, while the son sustained critical bullet injuries. This alarming news grabbed people’s attention not only due to its consequences but also due to the feelings relating to the motherhood, as a mother not only killed her own children but also killed a belief associated with a mother’s relationship with her children. A mother’s love, affection, tolerance and forbearance — all were negated in this alarming and cruel incident.
While responding to queries, the 11-year-old boy, Rafah, was feeling it difficult to narrate the bitter experience he had passed through, and continuous sighs and tears were symbolic answer to my questions.
Sharing his tragic tale, the boy disclosed, “We were all very happy as my papa (father) made a plan to visit the Lake View Park after breakfast. Suddenly, my mother stood up and opened fire with a pistol on papa. In the meanwhile, mamma shot at for the second time in the head of papa and he fell down. She then shot at my sister Rania (7-year-old), she also fell down. My mother was shouting continuously. Then she fired at my second sister Nimra (5-year-old). I was seeing all this standing in one corner of the room. My mother looked at me and then shot at me. The bullet injured my shoulder. I fell down and pretended to be dead. Mama also shot at two-year-old Rida, who was clinging to her legs. In the end, she shot herself and fell down.”
Rafah was speaking amidst sighs. He was perhaps thinking about her sister who was clinging with the legs of their mother and seeking protection from her.
Police have recorded the statement of Rafah. As per police preliminary report, Rafah is a witness to the quarrel between his father and mother which started at night at about 2 a.m. The boy disclosed that his parents used to quarrel with each other. In sheer anger, his father divorced his mother on that night, which hinted at the fact that the quarrel between his parents was the reason behind the brutal incident.
Muhammad Farooq, the employee of a petroleum company, was residing in Sector G-6/2 of the federal capital. He hailed from District Karak of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The family with four children was financially sound but the husband and wife used to quarrel with each other due to unknown reasons and their personal brawl got so serious that the man verbally divorced his wife on that unfortunate night which resulted in a tragic incident.
The neighbours were of the view that the family was financially stable but there was an unknown reason of their unrest. The quarrel between husband and wife had become a routine. The reason behind this mess between husband and wife was that the wife wanted commanding position in the affairs of the house with a submissive status for her husband. On the other hand, the husband was not ready for supremacy of his wife in day-to-day affairs of their house. The untoward incident happened as no one was there to tell them that peace comes with acknowledgement of the importance of each other. A woman sacrificed her own children for her personal supremacy.
In civilised societies, reform committees are formed to solve minor domestic issues. Such committees play a vital and key role to resolve domestic disputes and misunderstandings between husbands and wives but in our part of the world such committees are formed either on political grounds or by police touts, which do not work for justice but only for vested interests of police.