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Schoolchildren panic-struck, people in mourning

By Sadia Qasim Shah 2014-12-17
PESHAWAR: The Army Public School attack has reminded the people of a similar terrorist strike in the Russian city of Beslan in 2004.

The Tuesday violence, which killed over 140 people mostly children, paralysed the capital city.

With the people in a state of shock, roads saw blaring ambulances head for hospitals from the school all the day.

The attack is perhaps the second deadliest after a similar violent takeover of Beslan school by Chechen terrorists in which more than 330 people mostly children were killed.

Around a decade ago (in September 2004), the scale of Beslan violence and the fact that attackers deliberately targeted schoolchildren traumatised the entire Russia and horrified the outside world.The same technique was used by terrorists, who targeted Peshawar schoolchildren.

The impact of the attack on the people was also the same: horror and trauma. The tragedy, which began to happen at around 11 o`clock in the morning, left Peshawar in particular and rest of the country in general mourning.

Until after the sunset, bodies of schoolboys kept coming to the Lady Reading Hospital an Combined Military Hospital.

The school attack and the targeting of its students and teachers is the first of its kind in the country`s history.

`The gunmen barged in and as the students ducked, they started firing gunshots in their heads,` said one teenage witness, who was among the few lucky ones who survived the attack though with some injuries.

Earlier, Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai suffered head injuries when the terrorists targeted herschool van in Swat.

Similarly, most of Peshawar schoolchildren were shot in the head.

However, this time around the impact of the attack is hundred times bigger. Perhaps even more as the minds of children, who attended the Warsak Road school in the day and saw the tragedy, have been fearful forever.

The TV channels while showing gory scenes put up `parental guidance` messages. The advice had little meaning for the children of more than 20 schools on Warsak Road, who have seen the tragedy themselves all the day.

`My nephew who luckily managed to get out very early is pale, in shock and running temperature, said Gul Shad.

The man`s own daughter although studying in another nearby school on Warsak Road kept crying when she recalled what she saw on the road in the day. Though dozens of families mourned the lossof their children, the gloom prevailed in the entire city.

Shopkeepers closed shops even before a three-day mourning was announced by Chief Minister Pervez Khattak in the afternoon.

The death toll, over 140 by the night, is perhaps higher than those of all terrorist attacks, which have taken lives of people in markets, mosques, churches and on the road over the last 10 years, This is enough to show the severity of the attack.

The schoolattackhasfurtherterrified the terrorism-stricken people of the province, especially Peshawarites.

In October 2009, Peeple Mundi blast claimed around 120 lives, while around 100 people died in the suicide bombing of Saint`s Church in September 2013.

Not only the death toll from Tuesday`s school attack is higher and it has shocked and hurt Peshawarites in particular and residents of other parts of the country in general.