December revives the memory of one of the most heartbreaking days in our history: the APS Peshawar attack on 16 December 2014. On that day, humanity itself was murdered in a classroom. That morning, the students of Army Public School woke up like any other school day. Children put on clean uniforms, packed school bags and kissed their parents goodbye. They walked into school buildings thinking about math lessons, cricket games and birthday parties. They carried dreams of becoming pilots, engineers and teachers.
Then, without warning… terrorists entered the school and started shooting, and everything changed in seconds. Classrooms that should have been safe became a house of murder. More than 140 children and staff members lost their lives. They represented not just an irreplaceable rupture of innocence for their families, but for the collective soul of the country. The computer lab lost its most innovative student, the one who built a website for the local animal shelter.
The soccer team lost its heart and captain, the player who could unite the team with a single rallying cry. The yearbook lost an aspirational senior portrait, leaving a promise un-pictured in the “Most Likely to Change the World” section. The local grocery store lost the cheerful stock boy who always carried bags for the elderly. And the town paper lost its youngest cartoonist, whose witty drawings perfectly captured the spirit of each talent show.
They did not just shoot; they aimed at the children’s heads. We found small bodies with half their faces gone. Their young brains had spilled onto the open books on their desks. The blood wasn’t just drops; it formed deep, red pools, soaking into the pages of their notebooks and staining their pencils dark red. The whole nation cried that day. This event functioned as a national alarm clock for protecting kids.
In loving memory of the stars lost too soon. Your light electrifies our path toward a more compassionate, humane and safer world. You are forever in our hearts.
Yumna Zahid Ali
Karachi
