JOIN USTerrorism is always reprehensible as it involves violent attacks on unarmed civilians. But on Tuesday, it touched new levels of depravity and bestiality when the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) went on killing spree in Peshawar, slaughtering 132 children and their nine teachers inside a school. Children were systematically executed; several were shot dead at point-blank range.
A teacher was burnt alive before her pupils. It is going to take Pakistan, particularly its children, a long time, if ever, to recover from this horror. Children will be scared to go to school and parents terrified to send them there. This is not the way it should be. Children have the right to go to school and to learn, play and make friends in a secure environment. As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon pointed out, “Going to school should not have to be an act of bravery.”
The TTP has sought to justify this attack as “perfect revenge” for the Pakistan military’s operations in Waziristan recently. The terror attack on the school run for children of army personnel was aimed at causing “pain” to the military, its spokesman said. However, the children were not accidental victims in the war. The
TTP fighters intended to kill children and had made elaborate plans to execute their plan. It is the deliberate nature of the violence unleashed on children that makes the attack all the more diabolic and deplorable.
The larger goal behind the attack on schoolchildren was to terrorise the Pakistani government into calling off its military operations against the Pakistan Taliban. That, however, is unlikely to happen. The attack hit the armed forces personally and where it really hurts – its children. The coming weeks are likely to see a stepping up of military operations against the TTP. But carrying out raids on its hideouts is not the way.
A more comprehensive approach is needed, one that sees action against all forms of extremism and violence, whether directed against Pakistani nationals or others. The infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan needs to be dismantled. The attack on the Peshawar school has evoked nationwide revulsion against the TTP and its methods. Parties across the spectrum have condemned the attack.
Many in Pakistan and abroad are hoping that the Pakistani government will move away from policies that nurture terrorism in the neighbourhood. Peshawar and Pakistan have seen extreme violence before but none as disturbing as this attack on children. It is a wake-up call that Pakistan will ignore to its peril.