PESHAWAR: For a minute a passing booming sports car makes some noise and then again an uneasy quiet prevails on the road near Rana Market -- a posh locality of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad -- on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Young and old men sitting on roadside with their tools like shovels or paintbrushes are waiting for their customers. Others are empty handed since they are daily wagers or labourers. As if life was not hard already for these hungry men, sitting on the roadside right in front of Hardies.

First time in years they feel they are being racially profiled by police and even local residents. They have been recently rounded up by law enforcers when a wave of terrorism across country drove the police to take some action. The same kind of action that was taken in Sindh and Punjab provinces where Pashto speaking Afghan looking men were arrested after bomb blasts in Lahore and Sehwan Sharif.

“Recently local residents have also expressed for the first time in years that we should not sit here,” said peppery-bearded Sheraz, a resident of Swabi, who has been working as a labourer in Islamabad for the last 15 years.

“Either it is a safety issue or may be these residents don’t trust us that they have asked us not to sit here,” he says in a sad tone as he feels if he could have found work and was paid in cash in time in village he would not have come to work in Islamabad.

In villages, farmers wait for the crops to pay for the labour. It was difficult to survive on debts in village so he came for work in the capital city just two hours away from his village.

“I have just worked one day in the entire week and have no money to take home. So here we are waiting for work,” says Sheraz. He adds that most of the men sitting on roadside in different groups actually belong to different districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and they all work as daily wagers.

These men in shabby clothes, some sporting beards and wearing shawls, mostly have not enough to have two meals a day. They sleep at night outside shops when shops are closed. They use empty cartons or plastic as their sheets and bedding at night.

“If we were terrorists or thieves, would we be sitting in this misery on the road with our empty bellies,” questions Basit, a young labourer.

Sakhawat says that he came to Islamabad years ago when the daily wage was Rs100. “Now we are only looked upon as terrorists just because we are Pakhtuns,” he adds.

Although some of these men having shabby appearance are illiterate yet they are skilled labourers. Many among them are educated but poverty and unemployment in their hometowns have forced them to move to the capital for better opportunities.

“I work on Rs800 daily wage. Problem is one doesn’t find work all week so I live on this money for the entire week,” says Umar Farooq, who has mechanical skills and an intermediate certificate.

“All I am trying to do is make my mother happy by sharing in livelihood of my eight-member family,” says Umar Farooq.

Khalid, who hails from Charsadda, says that he first worked as a vendor selling fish in Peshawar but owing to bad security environment he came to Islamabad for work. Here like others, he was also arrested by police. He says that like other he is trying to earn a decent livelihood for his family but it is becoming hard here too.

“Is it not even possible to be terrorist or a thief for us as we work all day and are dead tired so we sleep out in the open,” says Haq Nawaz, who can’t understand how can Pakhtuns be blamed for terrorism as they themselves are victims of terrorism.

“They can’t catch terrorists so police come cracking down on us labourers,” he says.

As these labourers talk of their fears and hardships, there are many who are just silently endorsing these fellows for some are too emotional to express how hard they are trying to make things work here so that they can be able to save and send some money back home.

They are willing to bear all hardships, discrimination and hate just because they want to earn an honest living for their families back home.

“And that is the Pakhtun’s way,” they say firmly.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2017