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Pakistan’s Kids’ War on Terror

Civilizations has elderly super heroes to encourage the aspirations of their young ones. The folklores of great men are told to new generations and it s expected from them to follow the same footsteps of bravery, innovation and leadership. In Pakistan, the young ones have become super heroes and are instigating their society for actions that it was reluctant in taking for decades. The society has now overhauled its view of terrorism and has now taking aggressive steps to end this menace that was eroding the social fabric of its culture and religion. Since the Afghan Jihad days, the country was largely seen as a safe haven of terrorist outfits. Public opinion was moreover favorable towards extremist mindset and the State was somewhat cultivating the same mindset to support its strategic and military requirements. Recently, the country has seen a paradigm shift in its public policy and public opinion regarding eliminating terrorist outfits from the country. This change has largely been prompted by a few young ones.

Malala Yousufzai: The world’s youngest Nobel Laureate is also a Pakistani teenager, who hit headlines in world press for defying Taliban’s ban on female education. In spite of being young and vulnerable in a male-dominated tribal society, she had been an outspoken critic of Taliban and its atrocities and encouraged girls in her beautiful valley of Swat to continue going to school. Keeping in mind that it was the time when most of mainstream politicians and bureaucrats were afraid of criticizing Taliban publically, a young girl was able to break the silence. In her cause of girls’ right to education, she was shot by a militant in a cowardly attempt to stop this fearless girl from going to school. This incident unleashed the brutality of this militant outfit and helped in curbing the favorable public attitude toward it.

Aitazaz Hasan: Aitazaz Hasan, a young kid from the remote north of the country sacrificed his life while saving the lives of his school fellows during a failed militant attack on his school. This brave lad fought with the militant and was able to intercept him from reaching the school building and avoided a deadly attack on his school and lost his young life in the same struggle. However, he was not able to live on, but his bravery gave his nation a new life and enthusiasm to fight the evil of terrorism.

The 132 other valiant: The nation was stunned by the massacre on an army-run school, which killed 145 people, including 132 school children. This attack on innocent kids thrilled the whole nation with fervor to avenge the killings of innocent lives that were killed in that barbaric incident. This occurrence made anti-Taliban stance mainstream in the country and religious clerics, who were often seen reluctant in condemning such outfits, were gone open in criticizing the perpetrators. Beside, a sudden shift in public opinion, the government also took substantial steps in its fight against terror. Surprisingly, in a country where it was to put one’s life in threat while taking the risk to condemn Taliban, it has now become impossible for the Taliban apologists to publically defend any of their fiendish agenda.

“A new Pakistan”:  The kids in Pakistan are no longer just asked to work hard on learning their curriculum but are now being trained by the Police and Paramilitary forces to fight Taliban in case of any militant attack. The school children and teachers are being given with the training to handle arms and ammunition and are mentored in self defense techniques and martial arts. However, this has been a controversial step that government has taken in this regard, but morale of students and teachers is high and they are seen paying proper attention to their additional task. Where top politicians were silenced by the terror outfits, the kids in the country have removed all the vocal impediments and country has grown less tolerant toward militant outfits. Streets often see marches organized by student groups that are urging government to intensify its efforts to curb militancy in the country. Taliban must surely have realized that young ones are hard to handle and should never be messed with!!

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