Shuhda Gallery : PSF Remembering The Martyrs

KARACHI: The scene outside the bungalow was quite normal; people were sitting in the lawn talking casually and some veiled women were sitting on chairs waiting to submit their applications to someone, however, when one enters the bungalow, a damp sadness can be felt engulfing you.

The double storey bungalow stands right behind the landmark mausoleum of the founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. This is the provincial secretariat of the ruling PPP. The central leaders used to sit in these offices and listen to the public and party activists but ever since the PPP came into power, these offices are empty. However, it was not these deserted offices that made this scribe visit the secretariat. Right after the main entrance of the bungalow, all the walls of a hall are filled with colorful pictures; pictures of the past, the young, the old and women and men.

The people in the photographs are PPP-Jiyalas (hardcore activists) who were martyred on different occasions. The Shuhda or martyrs’ gallery comprises of 615 pictures, including photos of those people who were hanged during the regime of Ziaul Haq, the victims of the October 18 blasts in Karachi and the martyrs killed in the blast in Rawalpindi when Benazir was assassinated.

“These are pictures of all those martyred during the past 30 years. Although it was not possible to collect pictures of all the martyrs, I have tried my best to get most of them,” said Asif Rahi, the founder of the gallery. Rahi is a senior Jiyala and has served the party since his childhood. “The party’s martyrs belonging to Karachi were my close friends and I had pictures of most of them already,” he said, adding that on the first death anniversary of PPP leader Munawar Soharwardi, when he took a picture to display, he also received pictures of many other martyrs.

“After getting the pictures, I got an idea to establish this unique gallery; I started working on the idea and now this gallery holds a large number of photographs of the martyrs,” he added. During the 1988 general elections, when Rahi was sitting in the election office, some armed men kidnapped him. They brutally tortured him and with a hot iron rod, they branded him with three letters, PSF, as he was working as the office bearer of the People’s Student Federation (PSF), the student wing of PPP.

“They would have killed me and I was really lucky to survive, so I decided to do something for those killed while they were working for party and at last I got this idea and started this gallery,” Rahi said, showing the letters branded on his back.

To frame, enlarge and develop a single picture one needs several hundred rupees and, during the past three years, Rahi has spent several hundred thousand rupees from his own pocket. “I have not taken a single penny from any one, even when the party is in power,” said Rahi. Hundreds of PPP workers visit the gallery daily and ask Rahi for copies of certain pictures and he provides them with CDs of the pictures from his own pocket.

He is also planning to launch a website carrying the pictures; however, he has no money for that. “I have established the gallery for my inner satisfaction, not to make money and I will continue working on it till I can,” he said.