"Mera sabar subah shuru hota hay aur raat ko khattam hota hay (my reservoir of patience would run out by the time the day ended)," said Dr Fatima Haider.

Her husband, a well-known eye surgeon, Dr Ali Haider and 11-year-old son, Murtaza, became victims of sectarian target killing in February 2013. Together with her friend, Dr Narmeen Hamid, she has established The Grief Directory, an organisation that aspires to be a bridge between grieving families (in particular those affected by terrorism) and those willing to reach out and help.

In collaboration with the Centre for Public Policy and Governance (CPPG) of the Forman Christian (FC) College, The Grief Directory organised a six-day programme on the problems faced by the victims, sufferers, and survivors of political violence which ended with a policy dialogue with the Punjab Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), P&D Departments, parliamentarians, donor agencies, UN bodies, and members of the media and academia. The conference also included a three-day course for health professionals -- defining victims, their needs (both medical and psychological), establishing support systems and services for them.

Recounting the distressing events, Dr Haider said, "There were so many people and so much food in my house during the 40-day mourning period. But on the 41^st day, there was no one." She later realised that while she may be more privileged than others suffering at the hands of political violence, she was still alone in her grief which led to her founding The Grief Directory. The organisation reiterates the fact that about 80,000 families have been affected by such violence in Pakistan.

Shazia Khan, a participant in the conference who lost many members of her family to the horrific 2013 terror attack in Quetta targeting Shia Hazaras, killing more than a 100 people shared her story too.

"It was raining heavily. We sat on the road in the terrible weather with the dead bodies of our relatives, trying to cover them up with plastic sheets," she said.

"We kept sitting in the hope that we would get some media coverage of the injustice that was happening to us. We literally had to beg the BBC for coverage and we ended up getting merely a small ticker at the bottom of the screen," Khan said.

Khan is a Hazara Shia from Quetta. In a voice choked with tears, she explained what life in Quetta was like for members of her community; how even participating in routine life -- such as going out to shop for groceries and visiting the hospital -- puts their lives at risk. She blames the silence on Hazara killings and abductions more than the acts of terrorist outfits for the violence in Balochistan.

"I lost my wife in a terrorist attack. A particularly painful experience was when I wanted to take her body home and I was told that there was no female medico-legal officer at the hospital. I said I would be okay with a male examining her because I just wanted to take her body home but they said that that could not be done. It was agonising," said Major Tahir Wadood Malik. Major Malik’s wife died in 2008 in the blast at UN World Food Programme in Islamabad. He is now heading the Pakistan chapter of Global Survivors Network.

The stories of the sufferers and victims of violence were enough to make one ponder about the sorry state of affairs in the country -- bringing attention to the very real stories reduced to numbers in reports.

"There’s the thought that unless I’m hit, there’s no political violence. Do we have to wait?" asked Dr Marie Breen-Smyth, an academic leading the policy dialogue.

She has worked in West Africa and Palestine, and drew from her experiences and research in conflict-stricken areas.

"People want food, they want practical things. You need to ask: ‘what do people need?’ instead of coming with your own assumptions of what they might need. In such contexts, you need to be careful when offering victims, survivors or sufferers of political violence therapy. Look at the needs rather than imposing a framework," she explained.

"We focus a great deal on the people who pick up arms versus those who suffer. An indicator of how civilised a society is, is how it deals with the vulnerable. And people who suffer most, teach us this lesson time and again," she stated.

Dr Smyth stressed the need for data compilation and humanising the statistics with names and addresses of the victims on spreadsheets and the urgency with which society needs to step up, speak up and reach out to the sufferers of violence.

Underlining the importance of reaching out and developing supportive networks for the affected, she said that even tasks as small as babysitting or driving someone to the hospital or being a reliable shoulder to cry on count in addition to setting up funds for welfare of the families.

A representative of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) pointed out the need to make a more inclusive disaster framework, integrating those who suffer at the hands of political violence. He said that just like those who are victims of natural disasters there is a need to rehabilitate those who are victims of political violence -- they deserve the same concessions like loan waivers and low interest rates. But, he added that it seemed that some people’s suffering has been justified in relation to how society sees them and that was an added challenge.

Adding to the discussion, Dr Smyth termed the compassionate work done for victims as efforts that undermine violent acts and that each step taken for compassionate work makes society more peaceful.

Academic and professor at LUMS, Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais, highlighted the need to understand that the state is a political and social construct. He said that teaching students courses such as the Theory and Practice of Non-violence broadens their understanding and opens their minds to accepting other points of view. Like Dr Smyth, he also appreciated the importance of data collection, adding that it was useful having an existing and available database of violence statistics from 1988-2010. With reference to the narratives shared by the participants at the conference, he said it was essential to "never be silent about violence or corruption".

Media’s role was also discussed in the conference with one former journalist, presenting the other side of the picture as he lamented the way media bosses interacted with reporters after they had either escaped terrorist attacks (like he had) or were reporting from violence-stricken areas. He shared his own experiences as he had escaped terrorist attacks multiple times, quoting what he had gotten as response from his bosses:

"Yaar kee hogaya? Bach kay aagaye ho!" (Don’t fuss over it, at least you’re safe)

"Yaar aagay jaakay report keronaa." (Go closer to the site and report from there)

"It doesn’t take policy to teach respect, humanity and value of life," he added.

Rizwan Naseer, head of Rescue 1122, shed light on how his staff is trained to treat people with dignity and kindness when they are being rescued, emphasising that they were repeatedly told that what might be routine work for them as professionals should not harden them to human suffering. Their own needs regarding counselling were also talked about at length.

Former Inspector General Police, Khawaja Khalid Farooq focused on the need to redefine terrorism as the old definition had become redundant with time. He also stressed on rethinking the approach towards terrorism as cases were often acquitted in courts because they were registered against ‘faceless, unnamed’ perpetrators of terror.

Building on Farooq’s comments, human rights lawyer, Asad Jamal, criticised ‘the transactional relationship of the state with the victims and survivors of political violence," also adding that military courts were the antithesis of a compassionate society.

Sikandar Javed, a Supreme Court advocate, who took up Dr Fatima Haider’s case, said it was crucial for efforts for a compassionate society to be effective that they are continuous. The need to gather around an issue and discuss it is the first step --things as small as circulation of newsletters, he said, were significant.

For six days, ordinary Pakistanis shared their tragic narratives, experiences, and what they had learned with each other and stakeholders from the government and the NGO sector, came up with solutions, suggestions, and remedies to cope with and rectify a chaotic and hostile environment. As the conference concluded, stories slipping from society’s consciousness were given a new life.