Becoming a Martyr
"I am happy that my son has become a martyr by sacrificing his life for a noble cause. My son made his mother cry, but saved hundreds of mothers from crying for their children.
"Aitzaz has made us proud by valiantly intercepting the bomber and saving the lives of hundreds of his fellow students."
Mujahid Ali Bangash, Aitzaz Hassan's father
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| Pakistani students sit next to a picture of 17-year-old classmate Aitzaz Hassan |
Mujahid Ali Bangash returned from his work in Dubai just in time for his son's funeral. And to console his son's mother on her child's premature departure from life. Fifteen-year-old Aitzaz Hassan was described as having thrown himself atop a bomber outside the main gates of his school Monday, when he realized the man was wearing a suicide vest. When the device exploded it killed its wearer outright, leaving Aitzaz to die later in hospital.
Two other people were injured, instead of the many whose lives the bomber had meant to destroy. Many more of the hundreds of students in Ibrahimzai, a majority Shiite village in Hangu, northwestern Pakistan, might have been impacted had the explosion taken place in a more propitious area for the bomber's intentions. According to media accounts the young boy had been late for school, which gave him the opportunity to view the suicide bomber approaching the gates of his school.
He was obviously a quick thinker and swift to put his intentions into action. Informing friends he was with that: "I'm going to stop him. He is going to school to kill my friends", according to his cousin Mudassar Hasan Bangash. "He wanted to capture this suicide bomber. He wanted to stop him. Meanwhile the suicide bomber blasted himself which resulted in the death of my cousin. He always used to say, 'I am always ready for my country.'"
"Aitzaz Hassan used to tell us that one day he would capture some suicide bomber, and his class fellows used to laugh. But this boy proved what he said, and I am sad that he left us too early", said local resident Miqdar Khan, of the teenager he said was known for his open criticism of the violent Islamists.
"He is the hero of the whole nation as he has saved many lives by giving his own life", commented the Punjab governor Chaudhry Mohammed Sarwar.
Another victim of a corrosively hateful sectarian assault in a cultural-religious dysfunctional society.
Labels: Child Welfare, Islamism, Pakistan, Violence
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, January 11, 2014
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