Rescue of Jihad
The failed attempt to rescue the 4-year old Jihad trapped inside a well of “undetermined” depth in Shahjahanpur is a stark reminder of the failure of the guardians of the people to protect and save their charges from unforeseen dangers. During the 23-hour operation, the rescuers could not find Jihad. A lifeless Jihad was finally lifted out of the well by three good Samaritans using a non-high tech device fabricated by them.
“From what we have seen from the footage of the camera, we can say there is no one there.” This statement by the home minister and arrest of the father of the boy, apparently to save him from the lynch mob, turned a tragic incident into a comedy of errors.
As usual, next day the amnesiac minister could not recall making the above statement. Some high-and-mighty who rushed to the scene of the accident to shed crocodile tears even alleged that the whole episode was a hoax, staged to embarrass the government.
The Jihad tragedy evoked memories of two rescue operations. On October 14, 1987, an 18-month old baby girl named Jessica fell into a narrow 6.7 meters deep well in Midland, Texas. Rescue workers from different agencies of the city, state and federal government immediately launched a rescue operation under the command of a single person, On October 16, 58 hours after the operation started, Jessica was pulled out from the well alive and in fairly good physical condition.
On August 5, 2010, a Chilean coal mine in the Atacama Desert caved in trapping 33 miners at a depth of 700 meters. Once the determination was made that the miners were alive, Chile implemented a never-witnessed-before comprehensive plan to rescue the miners. The government also devised a plan to care for the workers during their entrapment. The rescue was a global effort involving the US space agency Nasa and more than a dozen multi-national corporations. After 69 days of tireless work by the rescuers, all the miners were brought safely to the surface via a newly drilled escape tunnel into which a capsule was lowered and raised by a giant crane. During the nearly 24 hours of winching operation, as it was called, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera waited at the mouth of the rescue shaft to greet the miners.
The Jihad rescue operation clearly shows how at crucial times the idiot in us takes over our thinking capacity and makes us do or say dumb things. Unlike the home minister, Piñera did not make any dumb remarks during the entire winching operation. What about Jihad?
Since Jihad cannot be brought back to life, what should we do now? We should pray to our God for forgiveness for killing an innocent little boy.
The writer is Professor of Physics at Fordham University, New York.
Comments