Standing strong: ‘I will take my revenge’

Survivors of the Peshawar attack recall the tragic event.

LAHORE: “We heard shots being fired outside our classroom. Our teacher told us to hide and we ran to the washrooms. Later, soldiers came and rescued us,” Arbaz Zalan, a student of grade one at the Army Public School in Peshawar, said. He was speaking at an event at the Al Razi Hall of the Punjab University on Wednesday. 

Zalan’s elder brother, Arbab Karim, a student of grade 10 who had survived the terrorist attack, said that he was in the auditorium when some men broke down the door and barged into the room. They fired shots in the hall and killed eight students on the spot.

Karim said he had barely managed to escape. “When I grow up, I will join the army and take my revenge,” he said resolutely.

Students and faculty members of the PU listened with rapt attention as the students narrated the events of December 16 that claimed 141 lives.

Vice Chancellor Mujahid Kamran received the students, their cousin Arbab Hamza, their teacher Zubair Mahboob and their parents.

Zalan and Karim’s father said that they stood in front of the school next to other parents torn with anxiety over the safety of their children.

“If terrorists think they can scare children away from schools, they are mistaken. We will all fight them,” Hamza said.

Later, the participants offered for the departed souls and bereaved families.

The PU VC said that terrorism could not be eliminated through military operations alone. “We need to work towards changing the mindset that comes with it,” he said. Extremism was the bigger threat which needed to be nipped in the bud. “Our society has fallen prey to mullahism,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2015.