'I began at Mithadar in Karachi and brought back bloated, drowned bodies from the sea. Black bodies that crumbled with one touch. I picked them up from rivers, from wells, from roadsides, accident sites and hospitals. When families forsook them and the authorities threw them away, I picked them and brought home, to my workforce, spreading the stench in the air forever'. That's Edhi Sahib in his autobiography; and that Mithadar Centre was robbed this past Sunday. Some masked and others open-faced, they came rather early in the morning, when Edhi Sahib, who is on dialysis for the past one year, was still asleep. Kicking him up they asked for the keys. The keys were with his wife Bilquis who was not there, he told them. 'No problem,' they said; they knew what to look for and which cupboard was to be ransacked. In just half an hour they swept clean every locker, taking away nearly Rs 30 million in cash and five kilos of gold jewellery the people who trusted Edhi Sahib more than the banks, had deposited with the Edhi Centre for safe keeping. Edhi Sahib's close confidant, Anwar Kazmi, believes the robbers made two or three calls from their mobile phones, suggesting they were getting instructions from some insider. As per normal practice, the IG has suspended the area SHO and formed an inquiry team and Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah has directed the police to arrest the culprits and bring them to book. Meanwhile, the Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) has offered its expertise to help arrest culprits of the Edhi Centre heist. Given that one of the robbers was open-faced and was identified by the Centre staff as a regular visitor and mobile phone calls can be traced there is every hope that the culprits would be arrested and brought to justice.
Yes, the culprits would be certainly arrested and hopefully the booty recovered, but the wound the robbers have inflicted on the soul of people here in Pakistan and abroad will never heal. What more could be devilish than to rob a man who has come to symbolise as the ultimate in selfless humanitarian and charitable causes; whose organisation runs the largest network of ambulances; whose cradles are there to receive the 'unwanted' babies; and who gives the homeless and the hapless irrespective of their colour and creed a kiss on the forehead to show that he trusts them as a friend. Even when the city of Karachi is never short of thieves, dacoits and muggers it was beyond one's wildest dreams that someone would strike at the Edhi Centre. When terrorists explode them in bazaars killing the innocent; when sectarian hounds hunt out their opposites and eliminate them; when a contract killer succeeds in felling the marked man there would be some sort of a claim or an odd justification. That some people would turn up holding guns and loot the Edhi Centre is a crime that causes an immense harm to country's image. Consider profundity of Edhi Sahib's faith in goodness of human heart - a few months back he was provided with guards by the Sindh Rangers, but he returned them, perhaps thinking why should anyone add to the pain of the already pained children of lesser gods. The culprits should be arrested and punished promptly. This is not an ordinary case of robbery and the victim not an average target. On the face of it, there is sufficient evidence, in terms of both the eyewitness accounts and forensics, to help trace the culprits. Failure of authorities in hunting the culprits down will be the traditional last straw breaking the camel's back. Should they fail, the world will ask the people of Pakistan 'Are you the ones who could not catch and punish the looters of the Edhi Centre?' To the world Edhi Sahib is an angel of the unwanted and the dispossessed.
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