10th April, 1988

21 years ago on the morning of 10th of April, 1988 at around 8 am, I was very excited, my father was preparing my school bag as next day, the 11th April was going to be my very first day at school. One of our neighbors who had recently returned from Saudi Arabia had come to meet my father and they were talking while ammi was in the kitchen preparing tea, all my other three siblings had already left for their schools. Suddenly, a scream-like boom rattled everyone, it came with a shockwave so intense that it smashed open the wooden shutters of the windows and shook everything in its path. My father ran out to the rooftop, I was running after him trying in vain to match his pace, as soon as I reached up I saw a huge black ball of smoke which was expanding menacingly like the ones you see when a volcano erupts, the ground shook with another earth shattering blast and this time a fire ball emerged exactly the way it happens in movies.

By then, the whole neighborhood had gathered in the street and they were screaming ‘India ne hamla ker diya’ (Indians have attacked) and ‘Russi aa gaye’ (Russians have come). Amidst all the screams, slogans of Allah o Akbar and Kalima Tayyaba’s vird my father hurriedly carried me downstairs and told my mother to pick up a few things and leave for my maternal grandfather’s place while he would go out find my brother and sisters. He asked one of our distant relatives to accompany my mother and me, so we locked up the house and left for my grandfather’s place. On the street, it was all mayhem people were running to all directions not knowing where to hide themselves from the ‘something’ falling all around us, it was utter chaos, and everyone was after their lives. I was four at that time and still vividly remember that we were running on the road and the ground was shaking as if a massive earthquake had struck, shutters of the closed shops were shuddering ceaselessly, for once, when I looked up at the sky I saw something similar to steel pipes of different sizes flying all over our heads with a hissing sound which I later found out were rockets. I also remember my mother trying to stop a few taxi drivers who sped past us instead. Everybody was either looking for a shelter to save their lives or they were looking out for their loved ones who had gone out for their schools, colleges, shops and offices. Crossing through the Chandni chowk on the famous Murree road, my mother recalled that she was crying and carrying me in her lap as I was scared to death but repeatedly re-assuring her, ‘Ammi main nahi marun ga’ (Mother, I am not going to die) and ‘main inn Russion se laron ga’ (I’d fight these Russians).

My maternal grandfather used to live in the B-block of Satellite Town, Rawalpindi, from our place it was hardly a 10 minute drive but that fateful day, while we were running for our lives on foot, it seemed like eternity. When we were a few streets away I saw two heads lying with a few body parts in one of the streets and a dead body near the national market situated in Satellite Town. The roads were littered with empty rockets shells, the electricity and telephone lines and poles were broken and scattered on the roads. Though, I remember that whole incident in bits and pieces but what I know was nothing compared to the sufferings that the entire localities and the people of Rawalpindi/ Islamabad had to go through that day.

We came to know later that no invasion took place but one of our ammunition dump had exploded. Ojhri camp was an army ammunition depot that served well the purpose of the allied world against the threatening Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Located on the Murree Road in Rawalpindi, it was hardly a few furlongs away from the capital territory, Islamabad. It still boggles the imagination that why such a deadly store of weapons was sitting in a city area with so much population around it? It tells a lot about the callousness of the concern in general and the rulers in particular thus, raising many questions that are yet to be answered.

Contrary to government estimates which counts the causality figures into hundreds the independent sources claim that around 4,000 to 5,000 people, a majority of them from Rawalpindi were killed as a result of this one single incident. I personally believe, that the second claim is very much likely because one area alone of Gulshan Dadan Khan, a congested locality adjacent to the Ojhri camp was devastated by the missiles and rockets.The whole area had hundreds of causalities and bore a resemblance to that of a war ravaged town and its in addition, to hundreds of Army soldiers who died trying to defuse the weapons inside the camp. Later, when we came back, an eleven feet long rocket was found near our house, the army was collecting all the live unexploded shells from the twin cities. An army personnel told my father that Pindi/ Islamabad had been very lucky as most of the rockets didn’t have a fuse which prevented them from exploding or else both the cities would have been completely destroyed.

What surprises me the most is that being one of those important incidents, which later had contributed to some major political implications and the decisions that followed the Ojhri camp disaster is also rumored to have attributed to the crash of Gen. Zia ul Haq’s plane, goes unnoticed every year. The actual facts of the incident were never materialized and whatever was the actual report of the investigation that was later carried out was shelved forever as with the case with all the other conspiracies that took place in this country.

The sufferings of the people of Rawalpindi and Islamabad are still unaccounted for and demand a free and frank inquiry into what were the reasons and motives behind such a horrible incident that cannot be termed as an accident alone. Whether, it was about Stingers and other weapons or covering up of some black market contacts, it’s the innocent people who were killed deliberately and not in cross fire. The culprits need to be punished or maybe God knows, they have already been punished on the 17th of August 1988.

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