There was a misconception or it might be a reality that Pakistan
was a dangerous place for foreigners who want to visit here for sake of
tourism, educations, jobs etc. Very small number of people were visiting
Pakistan from other places of world since War against terrorism stated. There
was a perception of people around the world that it is the worlds most
dangerous place because every second day we could hear news of killings,
terrorist attacks, suicide bombs being exploded.
Not more than a decade
before we can see foreigners in Pakistan and they used to be happy visiting our
country. Specially on the roads of Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi and places like
northern areas where people from all around the world could be seen for tourism
purpose. It was an attractive place for them. But since this problem of
terrorism all the tourists vanished and we can see hardly a foreigner roaming
openly in our streets. We can see them but very few with hard security
measures. They were never walking in streets.
Court street is a
street near lower Mall Lahore. It is completely a common place where you can
see lawyer in the morning who are going to attend court from their chambers. In
evening when office timing is closed you can students of New Hostel, Government
College Lahore and from civil lines college walking through the streets and
having chit chat with each other. It is not a place where you can say very
special security measures are being implemented. It is surrounded by a lower
middle class society including Dev Samaj and Islampura.
This eve I was
walking around in court street I entered a juice corner, I saw a group of
students who were sitting at that place. I was shocked by seeing them as I was
not in any five star hotel. It was an ordinary juice corner. They were students
from a University in Lahore. As i was not expecting them here I went to them
and asked about Pakistan. They were very glad and were very impressed by people
and their hospitality. On my question relating security issues they said that
never found any security issue neither in their hostels nor in university. This
made me proud because I was witnessing the our comes of a long struggle which
my nation had during this last decade against terrorism. The credit goes to
this nation who remained united on this issue.
The credit also
goes to our Armed forces and the Political Parties. Armed forces who fought
with their best abilities, political paties who remained united at this
national issue no matter what was their ideology.
