Meher Bokhari

Throughout history, a single photograph or a piece of footage has possessed the power to ignite outrage, mobilize movements & alter the course of policy. The image of a naked, terrified Phan Thi Kim Phuc running from napalm during the Vietnam War forced Americans to confront the horrors their government was inflicting abroad. The footage of George Floyd’s final minutes under a police officer’s knee sparked the global Black Lives Matter protests, resulting in legislative debates and police reforms. Even the haunting photo of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, the Syrian boy washed ashore on a Turkish beach, stirred a wave of international sympathy and promises of refugee aid, however short-lived. These moments remind us of the visual’s undeniable power in awakening global conscience. One image. One frame. One unguarded truth captured and shared can jolt the world into action. Yet, in stark contrast, the last 18 months have produced an overwhelming stream of images and footage from Gaza—burned children, bombed hospitals, mass graves, & entire families wiped from civil registries. Among them, a recent photo stands out: a severely burned Palestinian child, her entire family annihilated in a bombing that struck a school-turned-shelter. Her tiny, blistered body—alone, in pain, nameless to many—has shaken countless viewers to the core. And still, the world’s power structures remain unmoved. Why is it that one image of suffering once sparked revolutions, while thousands today seem to fall into a void? Perhaps it’s not the images that have changed, but the geopolitical immunity of the perpetrators. Perhaps the machinery of desensitization is better oiled now—algorithmic censorship, media framing, and political gatekeeping work in tandem to dull global outrage. Perhaps #Palestine -long dehumanized & politically isolated, does not receive the empathy historically afforded to others. This dissonance exposes a grim truth: visuals alone no longer guarantee change. What once served as indisputable testimony now risks being reduced to spectacle. But the burned child in Gaza is not a symbol. She is a human being whose pain demands more than pity. Her image, like those before it, should be a mirror to our shared humanity and a catalyst for justice. The footage is there. The evidence is relentless. What remains is the world’s will to act—and history’s judgment on those who didn’t.

The sisters are being detained under Section 3 of the Punjab 1960 (MPO). The government has a legal power to order preventive detention, but that power is not unlimited. The key point is that preventive detention is intended to prevent a demonstrable threat to public order, not to punish someone for their political association or to pre-empt lawful political dissent.

so proud of my brother 💖 PSB honours Rizwan Aftab for athlete welfare, sports development dawn.com/news/2039503

back in the driving seat