Pakistan Schools Reopen After Peshawar Massacre in December

[IndoCarib]

PESHAWAR, Pakistan—Schools across Pakistan reopened under heavy security Monday, nearly a month after a deadly massacre at a military-run school marked a grim new milestone in the country’s battle against Islamist insurgents.

At the Army Public School in Peshawar, where an attack in December by Pakistani Taliban militants claimed the lives of 150 people—most of them children—helicopters on Monday flew overhead, and dozens of soldiers with assault rifles stood guard outside as students dressed in green and charcoal uniforms entered the campus. Some walked in with their parents, while others were brought in on buses by the Pakistani military.

“I can’t tell you the pain and fear I felt this morning when I was bringing my son to school,” said Abdul Qayyum Orakzai, whose son, Sheharyar Ahmed, is a seventh-grader at the Army Public School. “I wept and I wept thinking about what happened here, but my son has to go to school.”
The attack in Peshawar was a collective trauma for Pakistan. It prompted the government to require new security arrangements before classes could resume around the country. It also led the government to enact and propose tougher counterterrorism measures.

Parliament recently passed legislation to establish military courts for terrorism cases. So far, nine such courts have been set up across the country and will begin trials soon, according to the military.

The government also said it plans to form a counterterrorism force, with an initial strength of 5,000 personnel, to be trained and equipped by the army for deployment across the country. Thousands of military personnel are already deployed in Pakistan to assist the police and civilian agencies in fighting militancy.

Pakistan also lifted a seven-year-old moratorium on the death penalty following the attack, executing six men convicted on terrorism charges. And the government vowed to step up cross-border cooperation with Afghanistan.

Schools meanwhile hired more private security guards and improved security equipment. Some have said they plan to store weapons and ammunition on campus for emergency situations, with regular firearms training coordinated with the police for personnel authorized to use them.

Inside the Army Public School Monday, Gen. Raheel Sharif, Pakistan’s powerful army chief, greeted students and parents. Military officials said he was there to boost confidence among them, and to express solidarity with the victims of the December attack.

Many Pakistanis took to Twitter to criticize the country’s civilian leaders and politicians, including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif —no relation to Gen. Sharif—and prominent politicians such as former cricket star Imran Khan, for not attending the reopening of the Army Public School.

Mr. Khan said on Twitter that he planned to be at the school but was “advised to postpone [his] visit.” Officials from Mr. Sharif’s ruling party declined to comment.

Mr. Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party heads a coalition government in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, of which Peshawar is the capital.

Education officials in the provinces of Punjab and Sindh said some schools would remain closed until minimum security requirements were met.

Pakistan Schools Reopen After Peshawar Massacre in December - WSJ

 

[Ussaid]

They can take our lives, but would they can never take is our freedom!