On the night of 26th November 2008, when I closed my Law textbook to relax for a while after a tiring day, I switched on my television and it was all over the Pakistani news channels that the Taj Hotel in Mumbai has been attacked by terrorists and people inside have been takes as hostages by them. When I heard this news, I felt that it was nothing new as these blasts are taking place in Pakistan everyday. However, I never realised that the Mumbai attack would be so massive and so deadly. I was highly disturbed when I got to know that for almost two days these blo*dy terrorists were continuously killing people inside the hotel and had also occupied other buildings. I had felt that THIS IS THE TIME for Pakistanis and Indians to unite because both are facing the same enemy; these terrorists killing in the name of a religion whereas they don`t care in the least about Islam, but only about their personal interests.
However, after the attacks came to an end, its aftermath was as ugly as the incident itself. It worsened the relations between Pakistan and India and my reaction was, ''oh no...we already are almost at war with America and these militants AND NOW INDIA...no ways!!!'' Through news channels, I got to know that people in India have become allergic to Pakistanis and some of them can`t even stand Muslims. Pakistanis aren`t also very pleased about India`s reaction. It amazes me how foolishly all of us are reacting to this ugly incident. We have always been like that; playing blame games against each other. Even before partition, rather than uniting against the British, Hindus and Muslims were busy fighting against each other and helped the British to succeed in its divide and rule policy.
Now we are once again faced with a common enemy; namely these terrorists/militants/taliban/al-qaeda or whatever. Instead of planning on how to fight them off, we are just blaming each other, which is of no use. This makes our enemy stronger, because they are united in their mission to spread terror across the world. The guy involved in the Mumbai terror attacks, caught by the police claims that he is from Pakistan. I`m not sure whether it`s true or not but I`m sure that even if he lived in Pakistan, he was a liability to Pakistan; an unwanted dirt, piece of s*it. Living in Pakistan doesn`t make one a PAKISTANI because a man whom Pakistan doesn`t want, whom Pakistan itself hates, whom Pakistan wants to get rid of, can never be a Pakistani. These terrorists belong to no country and have no religion whatsoever. All that they are doing is not for God, not for religion BUT ONLY because of their hunger for power and to impose themselves on everyone. Many of these terrorists who are present in Pakistan are actually illegal immigrants to Pakistan from Afghanistan and these people then illegally got into India from Pakistan. The fact that they were hiding in Pakistan doesn`t make them Pakistanis. A common Pakistani man is no different from a common Indian man. We Pakistanis also wish to live a peaceful life, want the right and freedom to liberty, want to be protected against any violation of our rights. How and why would Pakistanis or for that matter, even the Pakistan government want to spread terror in India when Pakistan itself is facing the same problem, almost everyday. The North-Western areas of Pakistan face serious security threats and bomb blasts are no big deal in that area (due to their proximity to the Afghanistan border). Even in the main and commercial cities of Pakistan, we are faced with serious security threats. A few months back, serious bomb blasts that took place at the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad, which converted the hotel into ruins. Two weeks back, there were some blasts in Lahore, close to Gaddafi Stadium where the World Art Performing Festival was taking place. We Pakistanis are no terrorists. We are as scared and insecure as our Indian brothers and sisters. When we leave our homes for work, deep down our hearts we are scared. When I go to college every morning I feel equally insecure as the common man in Pakistan or India, who dreams of making it big in life and WANTS TO LIVE. Even my parents discourage me from going to the cinema, from going to McDonalds,Pizza Hut, KFC. My Pakistani friends, settled in America can`t come to Pakistan for a trip because they are scared of all the terrorism that is taking place here. I have always loved India and even now I do but it hurts me to see why Indians have started hating Pakistanis so much. Yesterday, I saw on India TV (journalism at its worst) that a man was pretending to be Asif Zardari and another guy was pretending to be a police, trying to prove Zardari false. They made such derogratory remarks about Pakistan and its people. It really hurt me! This is not a blame but wasn`t the Indian government itself negligent?
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