With a bullet in his head, Imran Faisal is defying all odds

Karachi: Every year, aerial firing injures at least a dozen and kills a few. Sixteen year old Imran is a victim to one such incident where a stray bullet came and hit him in the head while he was on his way back from tuition.

While speaking to ARY News, Imran’s father reminisced the time this incident happened and how it changed their lives forever, “It was 7 in the evening, 10th February, 2016, the apartment’s watchman came to us and told us that your child has fallen on the road but by the time I reached the neighbors had already taken him to the hospital. The doctors there told me a bullet has hit him and that one part of his brain is completely damaged. The bullet is stuck in a part of his brain from where it cannot be removed.”

His mom who still gets teary eyed speaking about the ill fated day which changed Imran’s life forever recalled that Imran was a very sensitive child who would get scared on the slightest of noises, “Imran was the kid who would be scared of crackers. If he ever heard a cracker he would lock himself inside the house. If his father ever took them out on 14^th August he used to run away in fear of the crackers shouting that I won’t go.”

The two moths that Imran spent laying on the bed unconscious were the worst where his mother died to hear one single word from his mouth, “It is his will power that he is standing today. We used to give up thinking we won’t be able to do it but it was always his strength which made us stand back on our feet again. He used to say I want to do it, I want to study. I thought he may not be able to do it but he worked very hard and is now taking exams.”

Having lived a life with hardly any friends, Imran says there is more important that self-belief, “I have no friends. I wanted to be friends with everybody but nobody became my friend. One should only have faith in oneself that I can do this then nothing cans top him from doing it.”

A crime which can cost someone their entire life is punishable by law but with only three months imprisonment, and an undefined fine. Imran’s mother is of the view that, “Aerial firing should be banned. People fire and just go but do not know somebody affected by it; how are they struggling or living their lives, what resources someone has and how they are managing their lives nobody knows that.”