The nation mourns as tens of dozen children were massacred in Army Public School Peshawar, and still that grayish proscenium of sorrow and grief is cantilevered on us. I stood stunned as I came across the news, the immediate feelings were beyond description, I wanted to cry but I couldn’t; I wanted to scream but I couldn’t; I even wished to die with those kids, but Alas!.. I couldn’t.
The argument “What could I do?” seems fairly obvious for someone who has not been as such directly affected by it; but believe me there is something that we still can do rather than sitting calmly and condoling sadly. We as nation have been witnessing blood being shed and corpses being ripped since decades, and resultantly our collective conscious has been habitual of such visuals.But this incident was different, which transcended whole brutalities and dwarfed any other such activity we had ever seen.
After brutality of Dec 16, with my heart deeply struck with sorrow and anguish, I vigiled few candles in my hostel to extend solidarity with victims of Peshawar massacre; and moments later someone passing by put-off all the candles saying “Ye Sub Dramay Bazi say Kuch Nahe Hota”… The statement almost had posed a shock on me and made me realize about lack of acceptance in our society. I suddenly thought that being so brittle and extreme in our ideas is probably the reason we are referred as ‘terrorists’.
We definitely need to change our behaviors and our communal systems, certainly no one can vindicate killing of children but believe me there still are people out there having soft corner for these people. The society needs to understand that it is high time to rethink about our collective discourses. The soft-corner about terrorism needs to be hardened. The apologists need to understand that deprivation of civic and national rights is not solely base of terrorism as if it were; modern times would have witnessed countless conflicts of civil rights transforming to terrorist movements.
The capital punishments and mere-operations by military would not simply eradicate terrorism from our lands. We ought to eliminate the ‘mindset & ideologies’ if we want to target extremism. These terrorists are just Personàs, The dried leaves of a well-rooted tree. We need to attack tree not the twigs. Surely no one can justify insanity, cruelty, madness, and brutality. The people still considering them ‘freedom-fighters’ need to understand that madness doesn’t encompass any logic. Slaying 130 kids in cold blood is unquestionably not something to be praised of.
Subsequently, The policymakers need to set their priorities about national security and the nation should also stop blaming others and start believing that the terrorism is very much out there, we need to awake from torpor and slumber. Otherwise everyone would wish that
“I better had died on Dec 16…”
