EACH New Year’s Eve, as fireworks light the sky in much of the world, Pakistan witnesses a darker ritual. Bullets are fired into the air and return to earth with lethal consequences. This new year, in Karachi alone, at least 28 people, including a one-year-old, were injured by stray bullets during celebratory aerial firing. These are not freak accidents but predictable outcomes of a violent practice that has become normalised in our public life. A society that marks joy with gunfire must confront what that says about itself. Celebration should unite communities, not terrorise them. Yet every year, families spend the first hours of the new year rushing loved ones to emergency wards, praying that a random bullet has not permanently altered their lives.

Guns should not be symbols of festivity when they are instruments of death. That their use has become routine on national holidays and religious occasions reflects how casually violence has seeped into social expression. Warnings from police officials and appeals by public figures, have clearly not been enough. Innocent citizens, sleeping, walking, or standing on rooftops, continue to pay the price for reckless thrills. Normalising such behaviour erodes claims to civic responsibility and reveals a troubling indifference to human life. Responsibility lies with the state to move beyond ritual condemnation and take sustained, visible action. Laws against aerial firing exist, but enforcement is weak. Penalties must be strengthened, prosecutions made swift, and offenders punished. Investment in modern surveillance is critical, including expanded CCTV coverage, to identify perpetrators rather than relying on chance arrests. Enforcement, however, cannot work in isolation. A sustained mass awareness campaign is needed through public advertisements, schools and TV programming that shows the human cost of celebratory gunfire. A new year should begin with hope, not hospital admissions.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2026