July 3, 2012 was a day of indefatigable and infinite terrible incidents as stray dogs were at complete liberty to attack innocents irrespective of age, cast and sex in my area. The day started when an elderly person namely Mohmmad Akbar War was on his way to mosque in his native village Audoora to offer Azaan for the morning prayers.
But instead of the mosque he reached the hospital, as he was attacked by a stray dog. It was just the beginning of the day when the whole area was under the command and control of stray dogs and as if we were living in a dystopia. By sunset the toll had gone up to 40.
However, everybody was sympathetic to us but nobody came to help us in getting rid of these dogs as they were enjoying complete impunity. People that day could not really offer Maghrib and Esha prayers in the mosque. In the late evening we came to know that the soldiers of 21 RR critically injured a student of 12th class, Bilal Ahmad Magray, who was on his way to a rice mill along with his friend in a load carrier and forces fired upon them and then claimed that it was a case of mistaken identity.
Of course security forces did nothing wrong as according to law they can shoot a human being when they suspect him to be a militant because without killing a militant or an alleged militant they are sure peace can’t be restored. Besides, they too are enjoying impunity under AFSPA as they do every damn thing in the name of so called national interest.
So it is obvious that common citizens have to be at the mercy of those who want to kill them may it be stray dogs or security forces or someone else. I couldn’t realise on whose side the law of the land is? Obviously not anyway does it come to the rescue of its citizens, of course those citizens who have given lawmakers power, mandate and authority to protect their own killers be it human being in uniform or stray dogs.
I stressed hard on my mind to find the answer that who is to be blamed for all this, those who kill and attack citizens without any fault, the law that gives killers impunity, the lawmakers who fail to protect rights of those who vote them to power or the people themselves who vote for their representatives but fail to make genuine choice.
And one thing I forgot to say is that normally it is presumed and assumed that a democratically elected government is defined as a system “By the people, for the people and of the people.” Of course we have a government “By the people and of the people” but unfortunately it seems very far away from being “for the people.”
It is also said that change is the only permanent thing however it seems to be impossible that a change will come and rights of humans will be supreme than the rights of the animals in this ill fated piece of land though Napoleon says word IMPOSSIBLE is found in the dictionary of fools.
