Afghanistan Times
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The horrific news and photos of a man having been brutally murdered in broad daylight while his 3-year-old child sitting next to him in a car, went viral on social media and sparked vehement condemnation from people across the country. The slain man was reportedly an employee of one of the government security institutions and was off duty when he was shot dead by unknown gunmen in Kandahar. The assailants fled the scene; however, according to the National Directorate of Security (NDS), two days later, its operatives killed the assassin and captured five other attackers who had reportedly earlier targeted government servants, military officials and elders in Kandahar city. Despite no militant group has so far claimed responsibility, the Taliban is usually blamed for such acts as they have a previous track record of targeting government employees. The most staggering issue is that such inhumane acts capture the attention of the establishment and the nation only briefly because the intensifying war in the country has made deaths commonplace. The biggest misfortune is that Afghans are now used to this daily killing, signifying how human life has turned worthless in the war-ravaged country and this recent incident is a brazen case in point of a man’s inhumanity to man.
Civilians, mainly children and women who become victims to such incidents, are suffering from the increasingly ruthless violence by both sides of the Afghan war. The frequency of violence has resulted in making Afghans so much desensitized that such gruesome incidents are forgotten in a few days. Moreover, such acts lift the bar of brutality in violence because future incidents need to be much crueler in order for them to be noticed by people and the nation. Although the whole country was devastated by the incident, it’s only a matter of time before it’s just a distant memory but the victim’s bereaved family members are the ones who would bear the brunt for life. This is while the government reaction was merely condemnation that called upon the international community to denounce the act. It’s as lame as a situation can get because instead of taking preemptive measures, what good is denunciation for the victim’s survivors who will have to live with a life-long trauma. More importantly, the government should instead take on a more proactive approach in dealing with and curbing such horrific activities and find a lasting solution to them. Meanwhile, in case of reaching a lasting peace with the Taliban, Afghanistan would face another challenge of wiping out crimes and vice nationwide. For achieving this end of restoring a thorough rule of law, the government had better henceforth spread awareness with the help of civil society regarding rooting out this menace of violent mindset from the public minds and institutionalize peace-loving thinking in the society. Meanwhile, these assassins and contract killers should be brought to justice and must be awarded condign punishment in order to discourage future violators from committing such crimes.
