On Friday, in American state of Connecticut, a young man, who has been reported to be mentally unsound, took the gun and shot dead 27 people, out of which 20 were small school children. He also injured scores of other children present in the school. The angry man took the gun and went to the school of his mother where he first he confronted the school principal, whom he shot down.

Then he entered some classrooms and started firing violently and his victims became the school children. Sounds of gun shots terrified everyone in the school and they all ran to hide here and there but till then, the angry man had finished one of the tragic events of American history.

Then he shot down himself as well and with this, the sounds of gun shots ceased and silence of the school was disturbed by the cries of the frightened children and teachers. It was a very horrible and painful scene when dead bodies of innocent and small children were kept in the ambulance and carried to the hospital. These children had come to the school in the morning, laughing and shouting, and now they were being carried silently, only the sigh and tears of people could have been heard. Soon this news spread all over America and the world and saddened everyone.

This time, there was no Al-Qaeda, Taliban or any other terrorist organization that could have been blamed and made a source of catharsis but there was this young man, who was left alone in the society and it was the gun, that was easily available for him to use against his own fellow citizens.

The scenes that followed were even more tragic. Parents poured into the scene and to the hospitals to find out that their loved ones had become the victim of this sad incident and now they could do nothing except to shed tears. But their tears and cries were so saddening that they filled the eyes of anyone who watched it on television.

American president Barack Obama expressed his gravest condolences for this and vowed to make laws to restrict the weapons in the American society. At one point, he could not control himself and the memories of all those innocent but blood-soaked children filled his eyes with tears.

This is not the first event of its kind. After Second World War and with the exclusion of attacks on World Trade Center in 2001, more Americans have died of the shooting of a mentally-retarded person than the attacks of any external enemy. In most of these cases, the perpetrator was a teenager who was left alone in the society and having found no sympathy, he turned against it and did not hesitate to inflict the worst harm on it.
No doubt, this tragic event is very sad and it is not a suitable occasion for making comparison but for a person living in war-hit countries of Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Palestine, Chechnya, Bosnia Herzegovina, and many more where great games of power and financial gains are being played by the great powers of the world, such events are of the routine. After filling up its belly in the above mentioned countries and their neighboring regions, the beast of war is now busy in Syria, Lebanon and some other areas of the world and every passing day increases the death tolls in these areas.

From Syria we receive pictures and videos where mortal shells land on the building, leaving behind dozens of dead bodies, majority of them women and children. Every day, number of people killed in this country exceeds hundred and since the beginning of war, death toll has crossed forty thousands, in which the majority is of neutral and innocent citizens.

Similarly, the air raids of Israel on Gaza and other parts of Palestine resulted in the death of hundreds of Palestinians and international media could not hide the pictures of innocent children and women who became the victims of these heedless and blind raids.

In Burma, thousands of Muslims were killed by the majority Buddhists who were not ready to tolerate their presence in the country. Very few of these stories could reach to the media as journalists were not allowed to go to the areas of unrest and thus we could only receive those pictures in which dozens of dead bodies were buried in mass graves and reminded us of the holocaust of Second World War.

In the beginning of this year, Kandahar of Afghanistan came into the flashlight when a drunk and angry American soldier went to a village and opened fire on the villagers killing dozens of citizens, almost all of them women and children again, who could not rise of their sleep and could not ask about their mistake.

In the last 10 years, there were many incidents when the warplanes of Allied forces dropped bombs on a house by mistake, killing all its members. On some of such occasions, they even didn't bother to extend any apology for this technical error; the error that removed an entire family from the surface of the earth. Even the mere apologies could no more bring their beloved once back or dry up the tears of those who were left with pain and distress.

In all of the above countries or regions, there is present the great game played by great powers for being politically dominant, gain access to the minerals or occupy a strategically important area. In some of the instances, these powers are directly involved in the form of presence of their armed forces but in most of the cases, they are involved by providing moral, financial or technical support to the different warring factions of the region. Iraq was freed of the regime of Saddam Hussein with the sacrifice of hundreds and thousands of Iraqis in which once again, the majority were of the innocent citizens.

The role of media is also not justified in this case. The news are reported in a way that same event can be highlighted in entirely different ways. When a tragic event kills dozens of innocent citizens and if the media is not interested to give it more attention and highlight it, it would only be treated like a news of few seconds, in which the intensity and impact of the news will be lessened by showing less details of it and hiding it behind any other important news.

On the other hand, if the media has to highlight the same news, the same news will be a matter of many reports, documentaries and its impact will be intensified by showing the pictures and videos of dead bodies, crying mourners and similar sympathy-arising coverage.

The tragic event of Friday gave Americans a chance to feel the pain of those who have also lost their loved ones in a war that they were not directly involved in. They also collected the remains of their loved ones with their hands and they also cried with all the pain and feeling of loss.

Now it becomes the responsibility of all those who have felt this pain to stand up and rise against any act that can result in the loss of innocent lives, without any discrimination of nationality, region, religion or language. This would in return ensure the safety of our houses.