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Grenade attack victims laid to rest amid criticism of authorities

By Zia Ur Rehman
August 16, 2021
Graves being prepared for burial of bomb attack victims.
Graves being prepared for burial of bomb attack victims.

On August 8, in an empty ground that is used for Eid prayers in Landhi’s Sherpao Colony, Awami National Party (ANP) leader Farman Ali had hosted the wedding reception of his younger brother Tahir Ali Khan.

“As an elder brother, I carried out the responsibility of holding the wedding ceremony of my younger brother in a good way,” Ali had told a friend last week.

Ali’s family, originally from the Swat valley in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, had been residing in Karachi for the past several decades. In Pashtun tradition, seven days after the wedding, the groom’s family, mainly women and children, perform a post-nuptial ritual called Wama (seventh) by visiting the bride’s house for lunch or dinner.

On August 14, women and children of Ali’s extended family visited the bride’s house in the Pareshan Chowk area of Baldia Town for dinner. The groom’s family asked the bride to stay with her parents for the night, telling her that her husband would pick her up the following day.

To return home, Ali’s family had rented a mini-truck that came under a grenade attack near the Mawach Goth area. Seven women and six children of an extended family lost their lives, and several others, all women and children, suffered burn injuries.

The dinner had been attended by women from five households from an extended family. It included the family of Mairaj Ahmed Khan, a Jamaat-e-Islami District Malir leader and former Dawood Chowrangi union committee chairman, who lost his wife and two children.

On Sunday, August 15, hundreds of people gathered in the same Eid prayer ground to offer their condolences to Ali. The venue of joy turned into one of mourning. “I have been ruined,” Ali said between sobs. “How can people kill women and children? They are barbarians.”

Funerals

On the one hand a large number of Sherpao Colony residents and ANP and JI workers rushed to the Dr Ruth KM Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi’s Trauma Centre to donate blood if needed, while on the other, dozens of residents picked up spades to dig graves for 13 bodies at the Maulana Madad graveyard.

Hundreds of people, including leaders of major political parties, attended the funerals that were held after the Asr prayers in the Star Ground near the graveyard. The entire area wore a deserted look as everyone mourned the tragedy.

“For the first time in my life have I witnessed the funerals of 13 people of a single family,” said Amjad Shah, a 54-year-old resident of the area.

Sindh Information Minister Saeed Ghani, provincial assembly opposition leader Haleem Adil Sheikh, JI Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman, ANP Sindh General Secretary Younas Bunairee, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl leader Aslam Ghouri and Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat chief Maulana Aurangzeb Farooqi were prominent among those who attended the funeral.

Condemnations

Politicians who attended the funeral criticised the provincial government and law enforcement agencies (LEAs) for failing to protect the lives of the locals, saying that the government will have to ensure the safety of the lives and possessions of the citizens because it is its prime responsibility.

Rehman told the government to arrest the killers of the 13 martyrs, warning them that if they failed to do so, the JI would announce its next course of action.

Grenade attack victims laid to rest amid criticism of authorities

“Such a gruesome crime at a time when the entire nation was celebrating Independence Day is a big question mark on the performance of the police and other law enforcement agencies. Our desire for peace should not be mistaken as weakness.”

The JI leader demanded that the government, the local administration and the security agencies arrest the killers, unmask the entire network involved in the heinous crime and make all the relevant details of the culprits public.

Bunairee said the incident is the worst form of terrorism. “We demand that the provincial government arrest the culprits,” he said, adding that the ANP will convene a meeting to form a strategy to protest against the murders of 13 family members of their party worker.