While visiting various press clubs throughout the length and breadth of the country especially, the press clubs located in the big cities, one can witness scores of grief- stricken, deprived, denied and dejected people with a flicker of hope in their eyes, passing their days and nights under the open skies. All of them, they bear a hope that one day someone from the rulers will come to them, listen to them and console them.
Last week during my visit to Karachi, one of my friends who is working with one prestigious newspaper, took me to the famous Karachi Press Club, where I was amazed to witness a tremendous number of ill-fated people from different parts of the country, particularly, from the lower and upper Sindh districts both male and female sitting in front of the press club in search of their elected representatives and also in search of justice.
This situation enhanced my curiosity, hence, I interacted with a few of them. In the wake of my interaction, I concluded that more or less, all of them were either the victim of our crude legal system, while a few of them were the victim of our barbaric feudal mindset and a few of them were the victim of pervasive poverty. Many of them were sitting in front of the press club for the last many months. One ill-fated soul from Balochistan told me that he was sitting there for the last eight months. He told that the ministers and bureaucrats always pass from there in their luxury vehicles but they don’t even cast a glance at these poor souls sitting therein? One of the aggrieved women from district Ghotki who is also one of the disciples of former Foreign Minister, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, told me that she has seen the provincial minister for Human Rights and also the Provincial Minister for Women Development, but they whiz past from there in their cars with a lavish protocol. The rulers and arrogant in power our bureaucrats who do not have the time to listen to these ill-fated and aggrieved people of the country, they only come to rule rather misrule and mint money.  What will be the fate of such ruthless rulers and thick-skinned bureaucrats, the glorious Quran and the history of the world is full of many meaningful lessons to reflect on.
However, I appeal to the President of Pakistan to come to the rescue of these hapless people. He must pull up provincial rulers and the senior bureaucrats so that these grief-torn who are hoping against hope may get some relief during this elected government’s tenure.
HASHIM ABRO,
Islamabad, February 23.