Nation unites in grief as parents bury victims of school atrocity
Print Edition
A SHOCKED Pakistan yesterday began burying the 132 students killed in an attack on their school by Taliban militants.
People across the country lit candles and staged vigils as parents bade final farewells to their children during mass funerals in and around Peshawar, the volatile city on the edge of Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt.
Grief mixed with anger as people looked to the authorities — long accused of not being tough on extremists — to stem spiralling violence in a nation which has become a safe haven for groups linked to al-Qaida.
At a vigil in the capital Islamabad, Fatimah Khan, 38, said she was devastated by the atrocity in Peshawar. “I don’t have words for my pain and anger,” she said. “They slaughtered those children like animals.”
Sixteen-year-old Naba Mehdi, who attends the Army School in nearby Rawalpindi, had a message of defiance for the Taliban. “We’re not scared of you,” she said. “We will still study and fight for our freedom. This is our war.”
In an apparent response to public opinion, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced he had lifted a moratorium on the death penalty.
Army Chief Raheel Sharif was in Afghanistan yesterday, where two sides whose relationship is strained after decades of mistrust were to discuss how to crack down on militants hiding on the border.
Pakistanis may be used to almost daily attacks on security forces but an outright assault on children stunned the country, prompting commentators to call for a tough military response.
In all, 148 people were killed in the attack on the military-run Army Public School.
The school’s sprawling grounds were all but deserted yesterday, with a few snipers manning the roofs of its buildings. Army vehicles and soldiers were deployed by the entrance.
The school’s was shattered by hours of fighting, its floor slick with blood and walls pockmarked with bullet holes. Classrooms were filled with abandoned school bags, mobile phones and broken chairs.
One wall was smashed where a suicide bomber blew himself up, blood splattered across it. His body parts were piled nearby on a white cloth. The air was thick with the smell of explosives and flesh.
“The attackers came around 10:30am in a pick-up van,” said Issam Uddin, a 25-year-old school bus driver.
“They drove it around the back of the school and set it on fire to block the way. Then they went to Gate 1 and killed a soldier, a gatekeeper and a gardener. Firing began and the first suicide attack took place.”
Sharif came to power last year promising to negotiate peace with the Taliban, but those efforts failed, weakening his position and prompting the army to launch an air-and-ground operation against insurgents along the Afghan border.
The military staged more air strikes there late on Tuesday in response to the school attack, security sources said, but it was unclear what the target was.
The military has been accused of being too lenient toward militants who critics say are used to carry out the army’s bidding in places such as the disputed Kashmir region and Afghanistan. It denies the accusations.
“People will have to stop equivocating and come together in the face of national tragedy,” said Sherry Rehman, a former ambassador to the United States and an opposition politician.
The Pakistani Taliban, who are fighting to impose strict Islamic rule in Pakistan, are holed up in mountains straddling the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
They are allied with the Afghan Taliban as well as al-Qaida and other foreign fighters, and Pakistan has long accused Afghanistan of not doing enough to crack down on their bases.
Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper quoted a source saying the militants involved in the school attack were acting on direct orders from their handlers in Afghanistan and that prominent Taliban commander Umar Naray was the ultimate mastermind of the attack.
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