Author: Special SAT Report
Publication: south Asia Tribune
Date: October 16, 2005
URL: http://www.satribune.com/archives/200510/P1_ary.htm
Not only the entire civil administration and
the political leadership of Azad Kashmir had evaporated, the military struggle
for liberation of Kashmir has also been buried under the killer earthquake
of October 8, a senior TV journalist said after an extensive tour of the affected
areas.
Dr Shahid Masood, TV personality of Dubai-based ARY One World Network told
the South Asia Tribune there was widespread looting and chaos in most of the
areas where no relief has arrived and where even the damage to life and property
has not been assessed.
Dr Masood returned to Islamabad on Friday
after a five-day tour during which he walked more than 50 kilometers on foot,
reaching Muzaffarabad, Balakot and Chakothi and saw the devastation, recording
it on his camera before any relief parties could reach there.
Dr Masood's in-depth coverage of the destruction
from Muzaffarabad was one of the prime factors which brought a sleeping Islamabad
and its ruling classes into action as he was the first TV person to point
out that the October 8 quake was not just about a fallen apartment building
in Islamabad but about death and misery to thousands more wiped out in remote
areas.
Dr. Masood was particularly critical of those
Government spokesmen, including the Minister of Information Sheikh Rashid
Ahmed, who had attacked the first reports of ARY and denied that any vast
devastation had taken place. "They started attacking me by name while
denying everything. Look where they stand now, shameless."
The ARY channel interviewed several victims
of the quake in Muzaffarabad and other badly hit areas while pointed questions
thrown by Dr Masood at ill informed and shameless Government ministers and
spokesmen brought home the fact that Islamabad was caught napping and mourning
the Margalla Complex when an entire humanity has been wiped out in Hazara
and Kashmir.
In his interview to the South Asia Tribune
Dr Masood said the pathetic fact was that the political leadership and the
ruling elite of Kashmir had disappeared from the scene and most of the Azad
Kashmir cabinet ministers were enjoying normal life in government rest houses
and AJK House in Islamabad.
Neither there was any civilian administration
nor the Army had declared some kind of a military rule for the emergency with
the result that a free for all had ensued with every one trying desperately
to survive. "It was the day after a nuclear bomb blast, or even worse."
"I could not see even one Kashmiri militant
on the spot providing even verbal consolation to the hopeless and devastated
victims. From Mujahid-e-Awal (the title given to Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan)
to all the Mujahideen belonging to the socalled Liberation Struggle, no one
was in sight," he said.
The failure of the political leadership, Dr.
Masood said, was stark but the performance of the Pakistan Armed Forces was
only slightly better as they were on the spot but they had no clue how to
coordinate a relief effort required to be colossal in scale and monumental
in size.
"I could see that the Chief Secretary
of Azad Kashmir, wearing a suit and tie even in such terrible conditions,
was running helter skelter to get a handle on the situation, but in vain.
All his officers, his police and his infra-structure had been buried under
the rubble," Dr. Masood said.
Dr Masood said the tragedy of Kashmir will
continue to unfold for days and weeks as all of those thousands who have lost
their family and friends would try to find the remains and bodies of their
loved ones and failing that would turn their anger on someone, most probably
the Government of the day.
After the extensive tour of the badly hit
areas, the senior journalist said the Government will have to do a much better
job to rehabilitate the affected people if a political fallout was to be avoided.
Dr Masood will be presenting a series of programs
on his extensive visit to Kashmir in the coming days.