PEACE IS OUR CULTURE

People of Chitral enjoyed peace for so long. They were ranked on top amongst the peaceful people all over the country.  Although the area is not rich and people are devoid of some basic life needs but still peace compensated all the deprivations. When you would say you are a Chitrali in a checkpoint in other districts of Khyber Pakhtoonkwa, no one would dare to ask the next question and every one relied on the tag of “peaceful people” and you would go ahead with pride. But with the passing days we are being robbed of our ancestral characteristic and becoming violent and unfriendly. Some of the recent events have very badly indented our reputation as non-violent community.

Killing of human being is the most heinous crime and it is universally agreed upon. All over the country we would hear murder cases but in our area homicide was either totally absent or a few in decades. Incidents which took place in the last couple of months are so dreadful and thought provoking for the residents of the area. Two youngsters collided their bikes head on at high speeds in a market. They had some scuffle at some other place and when saw each other on this occasion, they ran over each other and consequently one of them lost his life leaving the other severely injured. In another occasion a youth was murdered by members of a family at village Barenis by attacking him through knives and he was hit on chest right over his heart through a sharp knife. Two brutal culprits slaughtered a seven year old boy and threw his corpse inside a maze field at Mroi.  A merciless father killed his son over pity issue at Terich. All of the episodes took place in a short span of time and each time the barbarism was many folds ahead of hitherto occurrences.

There are a lot of reasons which can be enumerated as causes of these killings. In each case the ground is different. Unlike all over the country, Chitral saw gadget revolution in a very short time. Even television was not available until very recent time, but now everyone has access to television, cell phones and internet. Secondly, Chitral had a very integrated value system where every age group lived in a hierarchy under the supervision of the village elders. Every village used to be a collective society and respect for the elders as well as guidance for the youngsters was common. Now individualism has took over this old value system and wherever the head of the family is weak the siblings adopt their own ways irrespective of right and wrong and other people don’t heed attention towards them.  Thirdly, new evil ideas are invading Chitral through people living in those places which were until now unknown to this area. In addition to these main causes, lake of education, police nepotism, poverty, egoism and materialism are also responsible for deteriorating law and order situation in Chitral.

Dwellers of Chitral should bring their heads together to think over this matter to forfend such happenings in future.

We lounge beneath the pomegranates,

Palm trees apple trees,

Under every lovely, leafy thing,

And walk among the vines,

Enjoy the splendid faces we will see,

In a lofty place built of noble stones.

Ibn Gabiral, 11^th Century