Eminent writer and social worker says mourning parents unhappy with PML-N, PTI govts apathy
The federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments should make efforts to provide sustenance for the parents of the children martyred in the Taliban terrorist attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, as their children were the only hope for their feeble days, said Tehmina Durrani, eminent writer and social worker wife of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
Ms Durrani said this after a visit to APS on Tuesday during which she met with the grieving families and offered her condolences.
Talking to reporters after her visit, Ms Durrani said that the parents of the martyred and injured children were in great anguish as the federal and provincial governments had failed in comforting them.
“They (the parents) told me that it’s been over 50 days since the tragedy struck their homes but no senior leader from the federal government had come to console them. The parents were also very critical of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) provincial government, as they feel that the party led by Imran Khan had let them down after the incident,” she said, adding that announcement of Imran Khan’s plan to remarry even before the culmination of 40 days of the incident had also not gone down well with the mourning families.
Ms Durrani said that the children who were killed in the Peshawar school attack were Pakistan’s future leadership and the gruesome incident was not less than Pakistan’s 9/11. She said the incident had changed the narrative on terrorism which had been prevailing in the region since the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
“I’ve decided to build a housing society for the parents of the deceased children for which I will request the federal and provincial governments to provide land while friends and philanthropists like Malik Riaz of Bahria Town would be requested to pool their resources for the project,” she said.
She also suggested that all children of the APS Peshawar should be promoted to the next classes as they were deeply traumatised and would not be able to sit the examinations this year.