Facing Danger

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Share a time when you narrowly avoided disaster.

When I was studying in university in Islamabad I used to commute by bus. We had a very well organized bus system with a huge fleet of buses which would run every hour.

One day I sat in the bus with my friends waiting for the bus driver to start the bus to take us home. It was over the hour and we still hadn’t started the journey. Suddenly we heard the crackle of gunfire and saw several students running towards the bus stand. They were armed with guns and sticks and one group was chasing the other. One of the students was injured and his white shalwar kameez was stained with blood. We saw the students firing at each other and we were all standing in the bus and watching. None of us even bothered to duck!

Apparently the students belonged to two rival political parties and were playing out their dispute in public. After a while most of them headed towards the hostels but a few of them tried to persuade the drivers to take their injured friend to a hospital. The drivers refused to do that and even would not take us home. We were left stranded in the bus!

In those days we didn’t have mobile phones so we couldn’t call for help either. When we thought it was safe we disembarked from the buses and headed towards our departments to call from there. When I spoke to my father I didn’t want to worry him so I didn’t tell him the details. I just asked him to pick me up as the buses were not going.

When my father arrived the police had already reached the scene. On the way I told him what had happened in detail. It was while I was recounting the incident that I realized what a dangerous situation we had escaped.

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