His mother, Uzma Bashir while talking to Dawn, said that Usman was an “obedient” and “talented boy”. She claimed that her son had brought honour to Sahiwal being martyred in the line of duty.
It’s all rhetoric. While in an interview with CNN, the Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani warned that there would be 'no more business as usual' with Washington after the death of 25 troops in the Nato attacks on Pakistani border posts on the weekend. However, there is no body count of the real victims of all the wars that this country has got itself embroiled in wittingly or unwittingly. These victims remain mere statistics. Touba is just one of those victims whose story remains the same generation after generation. All she asks is 'but why me?' Whose side was her husband on when he was killed in the line of duty? Who was the friend and who was the foe? Whose battle is it? With these endless questions, she is left to fend for herself and her infant daughter.
Muhammad Usman Bashir was killed in the Nato Attack. He was 23 year of age and had been inducted in the army six year ago as a commissioned Officer. Presently he was attached with the Azad Kashmir regiment and had been posted since the last year in the Mohmand Agency.
His wife shares those sentiments and said that her husband was very loving.
Usman's infant daughter, Rameen
Buried with full military honours in Sahiwal, Usman’s funeral prayer was attended by hundreds of citizens as well as political leaders.
Twenty years old with a two-month-old daughter named Rameen, Touba sadly recounts how her mother was widowed when she was only three years old. Now, her own daughter’s fate seems startlingly similar. Touba’s father, Ikram Ullah Khan was a jailer at the Central Prison, Lahore. He was killed by a prisoner at Litten Road on 16 September 1992.
The war of rhetoric will come to an end and it will again become 'business as usual'. The temporary attention of the security establishment to the families of its fallen soldiers will wane. The military establishment will continue to fight a war in which it does not know which side it belongs to. Another orphaned girl will struggle through the rough times that this homeland readily offers. And she will never know whose side her father sacrificed his life for until the next accident which will be labeled as martyrdom.
* Photos also provided by author
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