When Balochistan bleeds, Why Pakistan Doesn’t Feel the Pain?

Please search your soul and say how many of us felt
The hurt, the heartache, the grief and the loss when
Police killed Tabassum Javed Kalyar in ‘Baway Di
Kutya’ village in Sheikhupura district (Aug 4) as he and other
Villagers protested the dumping of industrial waste in
Their water by paper mills?

Please search your soul and say how many of us - the 150
Million citizens of this country - are angered when
Okara farmers are killed, harassed and denied
Ownership to lands that they have been cultivating for
Generations?

Please search your soul and say if you understood the
Concerns of the parliamentarians from the Siraiki belt
When they spoke in the National Assembly recently
Against the injustices their people are suffering in
Every sphere of life?

Please search your soul and say if you hear the cries
From Sindh against the denial of basic human rights,
Economic genocide and other atrocities?

Please say if you mourn the deaths of innocent
Tribesmen in South Waziristan and victims of sectarian
And ethnic clashes if they belonged to the ‘other’
Side?

And then please see what present we are sending to the
People of Balochistan on the 57th anniversary of the
‘Independence’ of the country? Military action against
Our own! Why can’t we talk to them? Listen to them?
And solve their problems peacefully and amicably. Why
Are we treating them as enemies? Why do we build so
Many cantonments when we should be building
Institutions of learning to educate our youth and the
Hospitals to treat and take care of the ill and the
Unwell of us?

Please search your soul and say if we are on a right
Path to build a country? Becoming a nation may still
Be farther away. It may even be beyond us.

Regards