Pakistan Stands United After Peshawar School Attack: Nawaz Sharif

NEW DELHI-As Pakistan marks the first year following the Peshawar attack, surviving school children, teachers and parents have been attempting to make the long journey back to normality. “We want nothing, only justice”.

As he was making the announcement, Pakistan’s Army Chief General Raheel Sharif was meeting Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commanders in Kabul to seek their assistance in fighting a menace which he said had “hit the heart of the Pakistani nation”.

“This should not have happened to them”.

She said that youth are our future and we have to provide them a safe future so that they could bring the country into the ranks of developed countries.

The prime minister concluded the ceremony with a speech promising retribution against the TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, and pledging to eradicate terrorism.

Teary-eyed relatives of children massacred in a Taliban assault on an army-run school here paraded the city today carrying photos of victims as Pakistan marked the first anniversary of its worst terror attack with Premier Nawaz Sharif vowing revenge “for every drop of blood”.

The main Taliban umbrella group led by Maulvi Fazlullah, who has been based in neighboring Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was revenge for the North Waziristan campaign. It was indeed a horrific attack, and one which demanded a strong government response.

Operation “Zarb-e-Azb” (which the army launched in June 2014 but intensified after the massacre) “has broken” the terrorists, the prime minister stressed, adding that a country free of terrorism is close at hand. “We’re halting the growth of the cancer but not addressing why we keep getting it”, lawyer and activist Mohammad Jibran Nasir told AFP.

The area surrounding the school was designated a red zone with even dignitaries and journalists invited to attend the event having to park at least a mile away and be transported in by the military. One hundred and twenty two dead children and no… It is this message that the children want to send out to their adversaries.

While talking to the parents of the martyrs, Nawaz said that it is government’s resolve that sacrifices of their sons and daughters would not go in vain. “We need answer to our questions. Why did the state fail to protect my child?” said one parent who would only identify himself as the father of Hamid Ali Khan. PTI chief Imran Khan assured the parents that he would try his best to do whatever he could for the parents and children of APS. Pakistani Taliban militants attacked an army-run school in Peshawar, killing 150 people, …

On December 2 four were hanged at dawn in a prison in the northwestern city of Kohat enraging parents who wanted to witness their deaths.