The APS tragedy
Dr Humayun Huma
The APS tragedy, happened on 16th December, 2014, is indeed an unbearable and unforgettable incident after the Karbala tragedy and both the tragic happenings have created severe and permanent wounds in the hearts of human beings whose treatment is impossible.
I do not know how far it is true that a sentence is repeatedly linked to the mother of a child who did not come back alive on December 16, 2014 and was shot down along with other 150 students, teachers and staff members of the school. When a journalist asked her what would she say on the martyrdom of her son? She suddenly shouted at him, “Shut up, don’t talk nonsense, I sent my child to school, not for jihad, he was not killed in a battle field fighting against the infidels.”
Well, it is the correct expression of motherly feelings of those parents who lost their children in the said unforgettable event of terrorism, committed by the most cruel terrorists of the world, unidentified till now.
No doubt the APS martyrs, I cannot give them other name as they all were innocent and lost their lives for no fault of them. All of them paid a debt which they actually did not owe. In this context, my friend Jehangir Khan has rightly commented on the tragedy that the incident happened coincidentally on the same day e.g. 16th December on which our beloved homeland had been divided into two countries in 1971 by the creation of Bangladesh.
Anyhow, both are very tragic events, having eternal wounds in the history of Pakistan and will remain ever fresh till the day of judgement, however, it is pertinent to add that the prime characters of these incidents are common so there is need for carefulness as we have learned no lesson from the history till now and usually we become active after every tragedy.
To conclude, I would like to say that in my opinion the tragic incident we faced on 16th December, 2014 in the Army Public School Peshawar is far different from the the tragedy of 16th December, 1971, because, the APS was not a war ground or a battle field, however, the students, teachers and staff over there were treated like enemies which is indeed a black spot on the face of humanity.
The writer is a senior columnist, author, poet, playwright and educationist based in Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He can be contacted at: drhumayunh@gmail.com.
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