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| Will it awaken collective conscience of Pakistan? | | Peshawar Army school massacre | | M.M.Khajooria
December 16, 2014 will
go down in the his-
tory of Pakistan nay that of the world as the blackest of black Tuesdays. It was on this terrible morning that seven zombies completely brainwashed, totally brutalised and fiendishly programmed attired in Pak army uniforms were tasked by a bunch of devils going under the nomenclature of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan to storm the Army Public School , Peshawar. Reliable sources reveal that the killers were provided with lists of wives and children of army officers on active duty in Waziristan to be massacred . A lady teacher was burnt alive while her taught watched horrified and paralyzed with shock and fear. The mind failed to comprehend the enormity of assault so horrifying, so shocking and benumbing . The latest tally was 160 dead and over two hundred wounded ,many of them critically. Please don't forget, the TTP was the creation of Pak rulers and still enjoyed patronage of a section of ISI
This was certainly not the first such attack on Schools. In 2004, 186 children were massacred in Beslan, Russia,. But the Peshawar attack was unique both in conception and execution. Never before were school children listed ,chased, dragged out covering under classroom desks, lined up and shot through heads.
I watched the nearly eight hour long TV coverage of the horrendous Taliban attack on the Army Public school. The emotionally charged blow by blow account of the unfolding grisly happening by TV anchors numbed hearts, choked throats and bled tears. How could any sensitive human being hold back tears watching waling distraught mothers and sisters frantically searching for their loved ones invoking Allah's mercy and heart broken parents collecting tiny dead bodies of their martyred children. Every single act of brutality inflicted wantonly, callously with surgical precision deepened the collective revulsion amongst the TV viewers across the globe especially in the neighbouring India. In this country people openly wept in homes , workplaces and on the roads as images of horror of Peshawar massacre of school children danced on the TV screens .The school children in India physically felt their trauma. They were outraged and roundly and strongly condemned the carnage . Schools across the country closed down for three day. The Indian Parliament shared the pain and grief of the people of Pakistan and offered heartfelt condolences on behalf of the nation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to his Pak counterpart on phone conveyed heartfelt condolences and offered any help that may be desired. I only wish a section of the political class and the Media had shown requisite restraint and decorum and refrained from raising contentious issues till the next Friday or at the least till the end of official mourning. Our response to release of Lakhvi should also have been confined to calling for action against the prosecutors, filing of appeal against the bail order and continued detention of the culprit.
Given the overall environment and pattern of terrorist strikes, the Peshawar army Public school attack was certainly not unexpected. The Global Coalition for the Protection of Education Against Attack(June 2014) had mentioned about 800 School attacks from 2009 to 2012. The portents were ominous. To quote few instances. An explosion took place in in Bannu 17 November while classes were on A day earlier, a school bus was bombed in Khurram Agency, killing an 11-year-old boy and the bus driver. On Nov 14, a bomb was detonated outside a girls' school in Charsadda, destroying two classrooms. On Oct. 27, militants blew up a school in Bara Tehsil in Khyber Agency .In fact , Pakistan witnessed an attack on an educational institution nearly every week for the past several years. And what happened to those few who were apprehended and tried.? A measly 4 % conviction in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, wherein TTP was headquarters. That the Imran Khan party which ruled government was to put it mildly "soft" on TTP was no secret. The position in Punjab was no different. In 2012, 269 cases out of 365 ended in acquittal. In July 2012 a Karachi court acquitted seven members of the Taliban accused of orchestrating a bomb attack, citing a lack of evidence. Obviously ,the governments were either remiss in their duty or were sympathetic towards the terrorists .Even those convicted and sentenced to death benefited from the moratorium on executions and were reported to be kept in comfort in jails. It is only after the Peshawar attack that the Moratorium was withdrawn and executions commenced.
." Where was the intelligence? " Demanded Dawn editorially ( 17 December 2014). "The military " it pointed out has emphasized so-called intelligence-based operations against militants in recent months, but this was a spectacular failure of intelligence in a city, and an area within that city, that ought to have been at the very top of the list in terms of a security blanket."
Stressing that" From such events can come the will to fight, but not really a strategy". "Military operations in Fata and counter terrorism operations in the cities will" the editorial stated " amount to little more than fire-fighting unless there's an attempt to attack the ideological roots of militancy and societal reach of militants".
"Further" it pertinently pointed out , "there is the reality that militancy cannot be defeated at the national level alone. Militancy is a regional problem and until it is addressed as such, there will only be a long-term ebb and flow of militancy, cycles destined to repeat themselves. Perhaps the starting point would be for the state to acknowledge that it does not quite have a plan or strategy as yet to fight militancy in totality. Denial will only lead to worse atrocities."
The Army public schools, for obvious reasons merited adequate security cover. Plans of action should have been put in place to deal with terror attacks. . Was there any such plan devised and school children rehearsed in response in the eventuality of an attack? If not, who should be held accountable for the criminal negligence and punished? Surely the matter can not be allowed to be pushed under the carpet. And this is neither the first not the last attack on school children in Pakistan or else where for that matter .The positions taken by the main players would obviously and decisively impact the response to the on-going terrorism in Pakistan and crafting of a comprehensive and multi-dimensional counter. Muhammad Khurasani, the Taliban spokesman shamelessly admitted in a phone interview that " the militants had targeted the Army Public School because it caters to the sons and daughters of serving army personnel although some civilian pupils also attend.""Our shura" he said "decided to target these enemies of Islam right in their homes so they can feel the pain of losing their children".
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared in unequivocal terms on Tuesday itself that 'we will avenge every single drop of our children's blood'."The time has come for the entire nation to rise against the terrorists," the Premier asserted during his visit to Corps Headquarters, Peshawar." the Peshawar school carnage has renewed resolve of the whole nation against the scourge of terrorism" he concluded
After initial hesitation in line with his image as a sympathiser of the Talban avoiding to criticize them by name Imran Khan - the former cricketer whose P.T.I. party governs in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province did ultimately condemned them and lent his support to Nawaz Sharif in the war against terror.
Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif told Geo TV that Peshawar school attack had extremely saddened him and it took their resolve to new height.He vowed to go after terrorists till final elimination. "All tragedies provoke emotional exhortations" wrote eminent political commentator Parvez Hoodahoy( It wasn't the final atrocity"-Dawn, 17, Decmber, 2014) . But nothing changed after Lakki Marwat when 105 spectators of a volleyball match were killed by a suicide bomber in a pickup truck. Or, when 96 Hazaras in a snooker club died in a double suicide attack. The 127 dead in the All Saints Church bombing in Peshawar, or the 90 Ahmadis killed while in prayer, are now dry statistics. In 2012, men in military uniforms stopped four buses bound from Rawalpindi to Gilgit, demanding that all 117 persons alight and show their national identification cards. Those with typical Shia names, like Abbas and Jafri, were separated. Minutes later corpses lay on the ground.". "If Pakistan" he went on " had a collective conscience, just one single fact could have woken it up: the murder of nearly 60 polio workers - women and men who work to save children from a crippling disease - at the hands of the fanatics. Hence the horrible inevitability: from time to time, Pakistan shall continue to witness more such catastrophes. No security measures can ever prevent attacks on soft targets. '."The only possible solution" he asserted "is to change mindsets. For this we must grapple with three hard facts." "The hard facts" he mentioned lay at the very core of any realistic perception of terrorism and constituted the very soul of an honest and determined response to their depredations.
Parvez Hoodbhoy listed them as fallows;
"First, let's openly admit that the killers are not outsiders or infidels. Instead, they are fighting a war for the reason Boko Haram fights in Nigeria, IS in Iraq and Syria, Al Shabab in Kenya, etc. The men who slaughtered our children are fighting for a dream - to destroy Pakistan as a Muslim state and recreate it as an Islamic state No one should speculate about the identity of the killers. Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani released pictures of the eight 'martyrs', justifying the killing of minors with reference to Hadith (a horrific perversion, of course).."
Second, Pakistan must scorn and punish those who either support terrorism publicly or lie to us about the identity of terrorists. Television anchors and political personalities have made their fortunes and careers by fabricating wild theories. For example, retired Gen Hamid Gul and his son Abdullah Gul have adamantly insisted multiple times on TV that suicide attackers were not circumcised and hence not Muslim. Though body parts are plentifully available for inspection these days, they have not retracted earlier claims.
". At another level" he significantly pointed out " is Jamaatud Dawa's supremo, Hafiz Saeed. He blames India for the Peshawar massacre and, ignoring ironclad evidence, misguides Pakistanis about the identity of the enemy'.
Third, if Pakistan is to be at peace with itself then it must seek peace with its neighbours and begin disassembling the apparatus of jihad. The bitter truth is that you reap what you sow Today, massive militant establishments hold the Pakistani state hostage. They run their own training centres, hospitals, and disaster relief programmes. When Sartaj Aziz, adviser to the prime minister on foreign affairs, said that Pakistan was not going to target militant groups which "did not pose a threat to the state", he accidentally spilled the beans. In fact he was merely restating Pakistan's well-known zero-sum paradigm - we live to hurt others, not to better ourselves."
"While bewailing the murder of our children, let us acknowledge that Pakistan's soil has been used time and again for inflicting grief and sorrow across the world. Today it is not just India and Afghanistan who accuse us, but also China and Iran," he concluded. Parvez Hoodbouy has spoken the unvarnished truth with rare clarity, integrity and realism. It should be hoped that Pakistan political class and its powerful army would take cognizance of his projections and re-examine and re-craft country's anti- terrorist and external relations policies accordingly. Such a shift will enable Pakistan to ward off the biggest ever challenge to its very existence as a nation state. In such an eventuality, support of India and other neighboring countries in the war against terror can be taken for granted. At the most important and emotional, brightened chances of victory over terrorism may be the best tribute to the young martyrs of Peshawar public School. |
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