I came across quite an interesting episode yesterday as narrated by a foreign aunt. A young woman in her thirties got robbed yesterday. Living in Karachi, this didn’t quite get my attention. Furthermore, she was aware her assailant, a 15 something year old boy, was aiming an obviously fake gun and a small pocket knife at her. My curiosity perked up as she continued. She let the boy get away with her belonging, namely her purse, while she stood silently on the spot amongst many able bodied men and women who could’ve helped her had they known she was being robbed. After lots of questions and tantalizing details regarding her feelings, someone asked the million dollar question; why didn’t she sound an alarm or attract attention to her predicament? 

She quite unabashedly replied that the stolen goods were not of much value and she was not going to cause harm to the teenage boy by proclaiming him a thief. She could not risk another Sialkot incident taking place right before her eyes. She could no longer judge the extent a man’s anger or his frustration could reach especially when he was hungry, tired and thirsty while fasting in Ramzan. On the surface her story received many laughs and shaking of heads. Passing off her act of silence as mere stupidity or childishness. 
But as people walked away, their facial expressions betrayed the trauma all of them relived upon hearing about the brutal murder of two young boys in Sialkot. Their underlying fear, reflected in their eyes, that another similar incident could take place and they would be powerless to prevent it. At least in their imaginations.