Protest Against Imran Khan - Visit to Peshawer

Footprints: After The School Massacre

Army soldiers stand inside the Army Public School.—AP/File

THE Dec 16, 2014 attack on the Army Public School and College on Warsak Road put the entire nation into a state of unprecedented grief. The trauma of this attack is not limited to the surviving students and teachers, and the parents of the victims, though their ordeal is by far the toughest. Suffering as well are the students enrolled in about 20 other schools, including two religious seminaries, located on Warsak Road. All together, thousands of children study in these schools. 

One of them is 14-year-old Zeeshan Ali, a student of grade eight at Saint Mary’s High School, Peshawar, located near the APS. “I was playing with my friends in the school lawn during the break when we heard blasts and gunshots,” Ali told Dawn. “We ran back to our classrooms where our teacher told us that militants had entered the Army Public School. I am scared to return to school after our winter vacation ends on Jan 12. I hear the sound of gunfire in my dreams and see images with black and long beards coming towards me.”

Students, teachers and parents are reeling from shock and are concerned about security. Most of the schools located on Warsak Road are private and don’t even have proper boundary walls, let alone security apparatus such as walk-through security gates, and metal detectors. Compounding the problem, most schools have just one exit while the route leading to the schools often gets choked with traffic during school hours.

Twelve-year-old Aishma Khan studies at Peshawar Public School and College, a semi-government institution run by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s education department. She says that her school has only one gate and the security guard doesn’t have a gun, expressing fear of it being targeted like the APS. “At closing time, there is a rush of students at the gate. There should be more exits,” she says.

Haji Rustam Shah Afridi, whose children study on Warsak Road, is thinking of moving them to Islamabad to live with his cousin. He says that his daughter, a grade six student at Frontier Model School, is too scared to go to school. “She screams in her sleep and clings to her mother when she wakes up. I don’t believe the school administration can ensure the safety of children in the given situation.”
Moreover, a large number of students from outside Peshawar live in private, makeshift hostels on Warsak Road that have no proper security arrangements.

Arsalan, a young teacher at a private school on Warsak Road who lives in one of these hostels, is thinking of quitting his job. He says that the school administration doesn’t provide security or a safe place to live. “Why should I risk my life?” he asks. “Two of my colleagues have already decided not to return to Peshawar.”

There are others, though, who claim to be unafraid. Fifteen-year-old Sufiyan Khan from Swat wants his school to reopen quickly. “I am not scared of these ignorant people who blow up schools and kill innocent children,” he says. “We should resist militancy. I hope the army defeats them as they did in Swat.”

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, a psychiatrist in Peshawar, observes that there can be two reasons for such shows of resilience. One could be a state of denial, a refusal to believe that such a thing could happen to them or loved ones; the other is exposure to violence. “Both can be dangerous at later stages as the sufferers can develop anxiety and phobia,” he says, warning that they should be treated in initial stages.

“I have received patients refusing going to school because they identify school as an unpleasant place,” says Dr Hussain. “I have sent letters to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa education and health departments,

recommending counselling for the affected people, whether students, teachers or parents, not just of the APS but also of other schools nearby.”

The APS tragedy has made students, parents and teachers, as well as members of civil society, aware of the need for psychological counselling. They have demanded that the government provide not only protection for all educational institutions but also arrange for psychological support to all those affected by the events.
Dr Hussain also feels that the media should avoid showing graphic details of the attack. Instead, the media should also invite experts to explain the situation clearly as lack of knowledge also leads to fears, he points out. And most importantly, the apprehensions of students, teachers and parents regarding preventive security measures should be properly addressed.

Herald’s Person of the Year: Aitzaz Hasan

Aitzaz Hasan in an image distributed on social media

SIXTEEN-year-old Aitzaz Hasan, killed while averting a suicide attack on his school in Hangu in January last year, has been chosen as Herald’s Person of the Year for 2014.

Herald’s annual Person of the Year project sets out to recognize those individuals in Pakistan who had a profound influence on the news and who embodied, for good or ill, what was important about the year.

Hasan, whose sacrifice attained further poignancy after the December 16 attack on Peshawar Army Public School, emerged as the winner in a three-way voting process that included online voting, postal ballots and input from a panel of 10 eminent Pakistanis.

In the final cumulative result, Hasan received 24.1 per cent of the votes, closely followed by Imran Khan, who received 23.3 per cent and who was included on the list for “creating the biggest political storm of the year”.

Other candidates in the running were lawyer Rashid Rehman, gunned down last year for defending a blasphemy accused; the Lyari footballers, who placed third in the Street Child World Cup; Mama Qadeer, leading campaigner for the return of the missing Baloch; child activist and Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai; television talk-show host Hamid Mir; chief of army staff General Raheel Sharif; cricketer Younis Khan, and, collectively, all local directors who debuted films this year.

In Herald’s upcoming annual issue, Yousafzai – Herald’s Person of the Year for 2012 – pays tribute to Hasan, writing:

“Our country is blessed with brave people. The story of Aitzaz Hasan reflects their reliance, courage and bravery.”

Boxer Amir Khan visits Army Public School, says ‘terrorism must stop’

Amir Khan Boxer Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Raheel Sharif

PESHAWAR: Amir Khan, a British boxing champion of Pakistani origin, paid a visit to terror-hit Army Public School in Peshawar on Monday and said that his heart went out to the families and parents whose children had died in a brutal Taliban attack on Dec 16.

 

“The main reason I came to Pakistan was to visit Peshawar and see the parents of the victims,” Khan said.

 "Children must be scared to go back to school and the onus is on us to instil confidence in them, and also help to improve the country's security situation,” the star boxer said.

Khan expressed hope that the joint efforts of the armed forces and the citizens of Pakistan would help in ending terrorism.

“[For now], all we can do is [to] pray [for the victims' families] and hope [terrorist attacks] do not occur again,” he said.

Before visiting the Army Public School, Khan also met with Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Raheel Sharif at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. During the meeting, Gen Raheel praised Khan's services for the people of Pakistan.

According to a tweet by Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) spokesman Maj Asim Bajwa, Khan also expressed solidarity with the families of the Peshawar school attack victims as well as the country's armed forces.

Woman of the year: The Pakistani mother

No assessment of women can be complete without saluting the courage of the Peshawar attack victims.—Reuters/file.

It is an unenviable exercise, to write about one tragedy in the midst of another. As Pakistanis pick up the pieces from Peshawar, collect the condolences, assess the helplessness and avert their eyes from what is at best a feeble future, there is the task of assessing the year gone by. And within this yearly exercise is the job of taking measure of the year for the country’s women.

Was it a good year for them? Were they defined by the Pakistani girl that won the Nobel Peace Prize or by the Pakistani woman who was stoned on the steps of a courthouse? Was it a year of successes or losses, more joy or more tears, more hopefulness or more regret?
To begin the task of weights and measures; there are numbers. More men than women are born in Pakistan – 105.7 boys born for every 100 girls. Of the girls that manage to survive, roughly 40 per cent will not be literate, and will never learn to write their name or read a book or sign a document. It may be an unlettered life, but it is likely to be a longer one – life expectancy for the Pakistani female has risen from around 53 years in 1970 to about 66.4 years.

Woman of the Year: The Pakistani mother

Nearly 150 of them buried their children in this the last month of the year, and no assessment of women can be complete without saluting the courage of these mothers. If war has defined Pakistan’s politics in 2014, the resilience of the Pakistani mother has been its least saluted constituency.

With the funerals of children tearing the hearts and minds of the country, it befits that the last moments of 2014 be devoted to remembering just that.
More than 75 per cent of Pakistan’s female population will be mothers during their lifetimes; they will bring children into the riven reality of a country that can provide few guarantees for them. If any words can define the condition of the country’s women, they would be the words of headmistress Tahira Qazi, who told the Taliban gunmen who entered the school: “Talk to me, I am their mother”.

She is gone now, but in her bravery, the women of Pakistan, mothers of now or later, have a summation of the challenge before them, which will not cede with the passing of the year.

The youngest mothers and those who tend to them

Many Pakistani women who become mothers are children themselves. A recent study disclosed that over half of married Pakistani women between the ages of 20 and 24 were married before they turned 18. Even this is some progress, however, the average age of marriage has gone up from 13.3 years in the 1950s to about 23 years currently.

Unsurprisingly, the youngest mothers are the poorest and least literate, living in the country’s rural areas where they have little or no access to healthcare. Only 20 per cent of the poorest Pakistani mothers had any medical care when they gave birth, compared to over 77 per cent of the country’s wealthiest.

Like everything else, the landscape of motherhood in Pakistan is defined by class, by the luck of those who have much; against the fortunes of those who have almost nothing at all. The Pakistani mother will bear 3.8 children during her lifetime, one of the highest rates in the world. In maternal health, Pakistan ranks above only above Afghanistan in the entire world. Only a quarter of Pakistani mothers have access to any kind of contraception.

Those that tend to the mothers were also targets this year. Members of Pakistan’s Lady Health Workers became targets, many were mothers themselves and others tended to women who were mothers; often providing the only healthcare that rural Pakistani women are able to receive.
Four more were killed in the last days of November, just as the numbers of the babies afflicted by the polio virus rose to 260, the highest anywhere in the world.

Being targeted by terrorists was not the only hurdle these mothers faced. Amid reports of widespread harassment by male superiors, one from Mansehra involved the case of Fauzia Bibi who was slapped on the face and abused. When confronted by the case, Dr Jamshed reported that the female health worker had “attacked” him. Despite all of these formidable obstacles, Pakistan’s Lady Health Workers continued to carry on.

The Plight of “Other” Mothers

There are mothers who mourn, and mothers who must be mourned. The year 2014 was barely half done when on the morning of May 27, Farzana Parveen, pregnant, was stoned to death outside Lahore High Court months before she could give birth.

In the initial reports of the incident, Parveen was said to have been stoned to death by her family for having married a man of her own choice. Those first reports said her father had admitted to the killing. Later, reports revealed complications in the story, with Muhammad Iqbal, Parveen's husband, now implicated in the murder of his first wife.

When the case finally came to court this November, Farzana Parveen’s father, brother, cousin and another man were found guilty of her death. She had been killed by her own. In meeting such an end, she joined the nearly 1000 women who are killed for honour every year in this country. In 2014, hers was the most gruesome and most public case.

This bygone year was also one in which a mother was sentenced to death. Asia Bibi, a mother of five, lost her appeal before the Lahore High Court on October 17 2014 and her death sentence for blasphemy was upheld. On December 2, 2014, her lawyer filed a final appeal before the Pakistan Supreme Court. If her case is not heard, she will await the execution of her death sentence.

The Pakistani woman stands very much in the midst of seas which were as turbulent in 2014 as they're likely to be in 2015. There have been flashes of brilliance, of sheer mettle and spirit; awards and achievements.
But any promise or glint of hope is drowned out by the wailing of those close to 200 mothers, who either buried their children in Peshawar near the turn of the year, or are awaiting the miracle of health and happiness for their battered, injured children languishing in hospital wards.

Women supporters of Pakistani party Jammat-e-Islami (JI) pray for the victims of the Peshawar school massacre, during a rally in Islamabad on December 26, 2014

Women supporters of Pakistani party Jammat-e-Islami (JI) pray for the victims of the Peshawar school massacre, during a rally in Islamabad on December 26, 2014 (AFP Photo/Aamir Qureshi)

Facilitator' of Taliban school attack killed in Pakistan

Pak Army Enter Into Chief Minister House While APC

Pakistani security forces have killed a Taliban commander who allegedly facilitated the Peshawar school massacre, which left 150 people dead in the country's worst ever terror attack, officials said Friday.
Named only as "Saddam", the militant was killed Thursday night in a gunfight with security forces in the restive Khyber tribal area, which borders the northwestern city of Peshawar where last week's horrific attack took place.
"Commander Saddam was a dreaded terrorist, who was killed in an exchange of fire with the security forces in Jamrud town of Khyber tribal region," top local administration official Shahab Ali Shah told a press conference in Peshawar.
"Six of his accomplices were injured and arrested."
He added that Saddam is believed to have facilitated the school attack, although the extent or capacity of his alleged involvement was not yet known.
"Authorities are currently interrogating the injured terrorists," Shah said.

Saddam and his accomplices had been involved in several recent attacks on security forces that had resulted in heavy casualties, Shah said.
The military said it killed 23 militants in aerial strikes in the troubled northwest near the Afghan border on Friday evening.
"In very effective and precise aerial strikes in North Waziristan this evening, 23 terrorists including some important commanders were killed," the military said in a statement.
"A huge underground ammunition dump and tunnel system have been destroyed," it added.

The Taliban and other militants have taken refuge in Khyber from a major army offensive launched in June in North Waziristan, another restive tribal area on the Afghan border that has been a hub for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants since the early 2000s.
Meanwhile, a US drone strike on a Taliban compound in North Waziristan killed at least four militants on Friday, officials said, the second such incident in a week.
Another drone strike in North Waziristan on December 20 killed at least five militants, officials said.
The area is generally off-limits to journalists, making it difficult to independently verify the number and identity of the dead.
Washington pressed Islamabad for years to wipe out militant sanctuaries in North Waziristan, which have been used to launch attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani military says it has killed more than 1,700 militants so far in its heavy offensive in the tribal zone, with 126 soldiers having lost their lives.
Pakistan has ramped up its anti-terror strategy in the wake of the December 16 slaughter at an army-run school in Peshawar, where 134 children were among the victims gunned down by heavily-armed Taliban militants.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has announced the establishment of military courts for terror-related cases in order to accelerate trials, and he has also lifted a six-year moratorium on the death penalty, reinstating it for terrorism-related cases.
Officials said Monday that Pakistan plans to execute around 500 militants in the coming weeks.