In an unexplained act of terrorism that cannot possibly be justified by any logic, ideology or creed, Taliban militants opened fire on a school bus full of innocent children in the Mattani area of Peshawar on Tuesday, killing four of them and their driver and injuring 18 others.
The bus was carrying schoolchildren from the Khyber Model School, Jangali, and was on its way to drop them back home after school when it was ambushed by unidentified gunmen near Lador Khawar, next to the narrow tribal strip of Darra Adam Khel. The gunmen opened indiscriminate fire on the bus, killing four children and the driver. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack.
Superintendent of Police (SP) Kalam Khan told Pakistan Today that the militants had first fired a rocket at the bus and then shot at it with automatic weapons. He confirmed the death toll and injuries. “The gunmen were waiting for the bus in fields and attacked when it came close. They fired a rocket and then fired bullets on the van,” said Khan. The motive for the attack was unclear, but the children studied at an elite English-language school of a type reviled by hardline Islamist militants who oppose what they see as Western-imported, secular education.
Two seven-year-old girls on the bus were also wounded, officials said. Outside Peshawar’s main hospital, Jahandar Shah, whose seven-year-old son Jamal died, sobbed uncontrollably and smothered his forehead in kisses as he tried to pull his blood-stained body from a stretcher onto his lap. He blamed the government, allied to the US-led war on terror, and the Taliban, for his son’s death, screaming: “What was the fault of this innocent child? Why did you kill him?”
Shoaib Khan, a 15-year-old student wounded in the attack, said gunmen first opened fire on one side of the road, then waited for pupils to start fleeing before widening the attack. “I started bringing kids out of the bus when the gunmen began firing from the other flank as well,” he said. “Then I was also injured and fell unconscious. I don’t know what happened next,” he said. Habib Khattak, a doctor at Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital, said 18 wounded were admitted after the attack, 12 of them children and the others teachers and passers-by.
Fee-paying, English-language schools are almost universally patronised by Pakistan’s middle and upper classes, with English widely used by the federal government. The school told AFP it had taken some precautions but that it had never been openly threatened by militants who have a presence in the area. “We received no threatening letter,” said deputy head Salman Ahmed. We ourselves adopted measures for the safety of the children. We stopped singing classes and the school band playing music during the morning assembly because we know militants are active in the area,” he said.
No words, they were just children
