May Almighty grant eternal peace to departed soul of Col Shuja Khanzada who stood up like a man to confront menace of terrorism that had haunted his motherland, a dark shameful legacy of men without vision, blinded by greed, like rabble rouser Musharraf who unbecoming of a soldier and a commando raised his fists to celebrate killings of unarmed citizens in Karachi 12 May, 2007. As a nation we owe it to Quaid-e-Azam, Allama Iqbal and others like Aziz Bhatti, Shabbir Sharif etc who sacrificed their lives so that we can live as free citizens of a sovereign independent nation.
Pakistan faces an existential threat to its sovereignty and territorial integrity from these terrorists who exploit religion, poverty and illiteracy to inflict more damage than could have been inflicted by our arch enemy. The East India Company has been replaced by corrupt politicians and few members of paid civil and uniformed bureaucracy who having either pledged oaths of allegiance to another country or acquired other immigration status have shifted all their assets and families abroad, pilfering this unfortunate nation of its resources and finances and for whom Pakistan is just a convenient financial transit stopover, where black money can be made with no fear of accountability.
It was during Musharraf’s tenure that ethnic, sectarian and religious fanaticism bequeathed to this nation by Zia-ul-Haq, not only gained strength but gave them enough space to challenge the writ of state to an extent that hundreds of our uniformed police were killed by criminals, while the state looked other way. Over seventy thousand citizens of Pakistan have been brutally killed by these terrorists just because of myopic vision and flawed policies of a few making Pakistan a haven for terrorists of all shades.
This unfortunate nation is paying for sins of intriguers who conspired deceitfully to prevent us from adopting legacy of Quaid-e-Azam. These pygmies whose greed for power and evacuee property left behind by affluent Hindus, were men without conscience who for seven long years prevented Pakistan to break away from British dominion, forcing us to compromise our sovereignty by our continued allegiance to Queen by not drafting and adopting a constitution as desired by Quaid.
MALIK TARIQ ALI
Lahore
