Paying Through The Nose For Their Watery Grave
By Samuel Baid
Kabooter bazi, as some Urdu newspapers in India described human smuggling a few years ago, has been a big money spinner in Pakistan- less for visible agents but more for invisible high-ups in the government and foreign embassies. This racket is lucrative because it seems every Pakistani is dying to leave this country. Perhaps it was in 1980 that a University Survey showed that if foreign countries allowed, all Pakistanis would want to leave their country.
The agents are well-trained in Chicanery. They know how to exploit Pakistani’s disgust with their country and make them have dream of countries they have never heard of. This shows Pakistanis desperation to run away from their country.
They must run away from their country unmindful of frequent stories of migrant’s ships or boats being deliberately sunk before they reach the coast of their dream country. This means mass burial of men, women and children in their watery grave.
A tragedy like this happened in the Mediterranean water on June 14 when a Greek fishing boat carrying 750 migrants (400 of them Pakistani) sank. It charged $9,000 or 27 lakh Pakistani Rupees per head. Pakistani survivors alleged Greek coastguards had deliberately left the boat to sink. At least 12 of them related the same story in the relief camp in Greece. Stories of killing migrants on sea before they reach their destinations are not new. Perhaps mass drowning of the migrants is part of the deal between the agents and boat owners. The Pakistani government said that 350 Pakistanis perished in the tragedy. It arrested ten persons who took the money from Pakistani passengers. Confining ourselves to Pakistan, being our close neighbors, we are really interested to know who are these people who are so desperate to leave the country? Those who are worried about the rising stream of migrants from poor countries to Europe should study why the people want to quit their country. Or, who are those Muslim people for whom Pakistan has never been a homeland. Or, who are those people who after when Pakistan was created in 1947 were never allowed to feel at home in their native land.
Migration has been ignored as a partial cause of human rights violations in a country like Pakistan where the slogan that “Pakistan was created in the name of Islam” at once drops non-Muslims or, in fact, non-Sunnis to non-entities. That includes Shias also, or religious or ethnic minorities.
Migration of these Pakistani non-entities began in the 1960s, when non-muslims became disillusioned with Pakistan’s first governor-general Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s word of honour that in Pakistan there would be no Muslim, Hindus or Sikhs. They will all be Pakistanis.”
Those who migrated to European countries in the 1960s were mainly people from oppressed Provinces like Baluchistan. East Bengal, when it was a part of Pakistan till 1971, was also very oppressed. That part of Kashmir which Pakistan occupied in 1947 and kept undeveloped, was also oppressed.
There are those also who flee the country because their criticism of the government makes it unsafe for them to stay in Pakistan. So, instead of taking a regular flight to wherever they want to go they take such risky boats to quietly escape.
It is noticeable that, 21 illegal passengers including 22 young men were from occupied Kashmir where people are demanding for vacation of their land and an end to Pakistan’s tyrannical rule. For such protesters, illegal boats are safer than a regular flight. The 21 Kashmiris who were on the ill-fatted boat belonged to a lesser-known village Bandali. From the Kotli District thousands of Kashmiris flee every year.
There are other persecuted people who want to run away from Pakistan. They are Shias, Ahmediyyas, tribal Baluch and Hazaras. They are a persecuted lot like minorities who have never been treated as equal Pakistanis. Such persecutions are a big boon for human traffickers. The United Nations Human Rights Council should urgently take note of it and seek remedial measures.
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author.