By Muhammad Nabi It is generally believed that a strong opposition, time-to-time protests and differences of opinion are some of the beauties of democracy. ‘Beautiful appearances have ugly realities behind them’ is what Shakespeare vividly depicted in most of his works. Since the accession of Nawaz to the throne, a cold battle of harsh words between the ruling party and PTI continued for more than four months. The captain set out solely on his campaign against the PML-N’s alleged rigging in the May 2013 general elections. Other parties were of the same opinion but they supported the government to save democracy, as they claimed. In his bitter speeches, Imran spared none leveling allegations against all. His journey from Lahore to Islamabad, the sit-ins afterwards, followed by countrywide protests caused dead to many of the naïve protesters. Nothing could make the once resolved captain who claimed to be fighting for a cause beneficial for the nation. The rallies and protests eventually proved fruitful for neither party. Some of the mediators, such as Jamaat-i-Islami chief Sirajul Haq, in their continual efforts started negotiations to avoid any severe outcome, however, only to end in vain. During dialogues, neither the ruling party abstained from offensive remarks nor does the captain give up his obstinacy. The intractable attitudes of both resulted failure in negotiations. Later on at the near end stage, plan C was disclosed by him aimed at shutting down city after city leading to paralyzing the whole country. Meanwhile, KPK was totally neglected and kept vulnerable to any big attack from the ‘enemy within us.’ The blackest day in the history of Pakistan came at last, uniting people indiscriminately as ‘bundle of sticks’ at a huge cost of 143 innocent lives about which no one could have conceived before. The Army Public School at Varsak road in Peshawar was attacked by beasts on Tuesday sixteenth of December. It was an irreparable loss. This saddest event fatally affected the country and the whole world at large. No parallel inhuman act such as this can be found anywhere. The incident awaked those intoxicated in their personal interests to pay some heed to the masses. Soon after the PTI’s chairman called off the sit-in, judiciary prompted to do away with the cases of terrorists already sentenced to death, two of whom were hanged two days after the unpleasant incident of Peshawar, military expended the circle of operation and the government called all party conference to set national security plan. All these measures are indicative of their seriousness. What is more important is the learning from our mistakes. After the incident, all the political parties set aside their vested interests showing commitment to eradicate the evil of terrorism from the soil of Pakistan. Wish it had happened earlier. On the very day of the all parties’ conference, Imran sitting beside his seeming rival Nawaz appeared weird at first glance but the message was to great extent serious. Now, as all the political parties are on the same pitch, the dire need is to build a big partnership to win the battle against the arch enemy no matter if one between the two is drawn.]]>
