Who would be a policeman in Pakistan???

This was the question on my mind as I travelled to Quaid E Azam Airport from the Avari Hotel on my last day in Karachi, having listened earlier to an eyewitness report from Reuters photographer Mohsin Rasa of a suicide bombing in Lahore.

At the end of last year following Bhutto’s return I had rushed to Pakistan ahead of the elections planned for January 8, 2008. Following her assassination it was no surprise that the elections were postponed. I was planning to travel to Lahore to follow former Prime Minister Nawas Sharif and while waiting in Islamabad for the new election date to be announced we photographed people mourning the death of Bhutto at makeshift shrines marking the place where she had been killed on December 27, 2007. Men and women, young and old, of every class appeared to have been traumatized by her brutal murder. After spending a week in the capital, I went to the southern harbor city of Pakistan, Karachi to give our Chief Photographer Zahid Hussein a break after all the long days he had put in following Bhutto’s return to Pakistan.

On my second day in Karachi there was news of a suicide bombing in Lahore. Typical, the minute you move the proverbial hits the fan in the place you have just left. As soon as I saw the first pictures I could not help but be shocked by the blood and the piles of bodies - bodies of dead, dying and injured policemen scattered over the street.

But if I was shocked and pumped full of adrenaline just by seeing the pictures, my reaction was nothing compared to that of Mohsin Raza our photographer on the spot.

He told me, “we photographers usually gathered at the gate of the Lower Court every time there was a demonstration by the lawyers protesting against President Musharaf”. But not that day because, “we started at the Higher Court to join lawyers gathering at the Lower Court”. The only ones left at the gates were the police, deployed as usual, quietly waiting to escort the demonstrators during their protest. Resting on their shields, wearing helmets and body armor, they had no idea what was going to hit them in the next few minutes. “As we approached the gates there was the enormous explosion. I was caught totally off guard, disorientated and did not immediately understand what was happening. Strangely enough I was not really scared and after a few minutes got my self together, became rational and was thinking straight again. My first reaction was run to the scene, but, in the back of my mind I could hear the voice of Zahid (his boss) telling me, ‘whenever there is a bomb blast do not run to the scene as nine times out of ten there will be another blast destined to wreak even more death and destruction’.”

Zahid had impressed on his staff the need to stay safe, to avoid obvious targets. If the bombers want to kill a specific person they have to be close to them. The same Zahid told our staffer in Islamabad, Mian Kursheed the same thing just before he went to cover the rally at which Benazir Bhutto died. Zahid, a veteran in this world of conflicts, suicide bombing and political assassinations, still remembers the lessons hammered in by the instructors at the Centurion Hostile Environment Course - stay safe, never approach a bomb scene unless the scene has been cleared, the bombers might planted a second bomb or booby trapped a body, car or motor cycle in order to cause more devastation.

“First I rang Karachi to inform Zahid and our correspondents in the Islamabad head office”, Mohsin said. “I kept a close eye on the opposition and after a while we all agreed to get nearer to the place. What I saw there was hard to believe, but strangely I was thinking clearly enough to function normally. The ground was littered with bodies and bits of dead and injured policemen, protection shields, batons, helmets and blood - lots of it, thick, deep, dark red blood. My attention was drawn to a sound, the sobbing sound of a child. I found a boy of about 12 years old, by a motorcycle, crying over the body of his elder brother. The two had been on the motorbike in traffic waiting for the light to change when the explosion happened”.

“Nearby I discovered a dead horse still in the shafts of a traditional Pakistani carriage known as a “Tonga”. The horse was lying peacefully on the ground, stone dead. It looked as if it was finally getting a rest from a life of hard labour”.

“After a while I moved on to the hospital, by now I was working on remote control with no conscious emotions, barely registering the scenes taking place around me. People arrived seeking news of their loved ones. I remember one big man weeping, heartbroken”.

“Later that evening I covered the first funerals. In the West it is unusual to bury the dead so soon afterwards but in Islam our dead are buried as quickly as possible. There I was photographing people laying flowers on the graves of the dead and mourning their loved ones in misery, deep deep misery. For the first time that day my emotions began to surface, maybe I was just tired but it is impossible not to react to such sadness and grief. 

But it was only when I got home that the full impact hit me. When I greeted my son and daughter and my dear wife I realised for the first time just what I had witnessed that day.  Men who, just like me, had left their homes that morning to go to work as they did every day and who, just like me, had exchange goodbyes with their loved ones, were never coming home again.  This was the harsh reality, the harsh reality many of us photographers live with. We take pictures of misery and are part of that misery. We face similar dangers to those faced by the policemen”.

“It could so easily have been me”.