Our Correspondent
ISLAMABAD: On the 7th anniversary of one of Pakistan’s most heinous terrorist attacks, the 2014 APS Peshawar attack, Sustainable Social Development Organization SSDO organized candlelight vigils all over Pakistan to honour the memory of the 149 victims, the majority of them children. These vigils were held in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Sukkur, Multan and Bahawalpur, and were attended in droves by members of the civil society, youth, students, activists, transgenders, journalists, lawyers and academics.
Among the participants prominent were President Islamabad bar Association Ch Fareed Hussain Kaif, Chaudhary Faisal Advocate, Human Rights Activist Abdul Hameed Lone, Journalist Abid Abbasi and Manager SSDO Sami Ullah Abbasi, who attended the vigil.
The mood of the event was deeply somber as seven years later, the scars left by the attack are too deep to ever forget what happened. One of the placards displayed summed up the feelings of the participants succinctly, “We will forget and we will never forgive”. For many, this was a life-changing event, imprinted on their minds for eternity. One participant at the event, a mother, stated, “Ever since that day, I have never been able to feel that my children are safe at school. All these years later, I still feel the same.”
The pain was a common thread uniting all participants that participated in this event, as this was a shared trauma that the entire nation felt. The majority expressed that since they could not move on from the event, they could not even imagine the sorrow that the family and friends of the martyrs felt. In fact, they stressed that it was imperative to never forget this horrific event, as it is a stark reminder of the effects of intolerance and violence in society. This must act as fuel for the government to eradicate the menace of terrorism from society and take strict measures to ensure that such events do not happen again. In the end, there were calls that the families of the martyrs be provided continued emotional support and grief counseling to ensure them that the citizens of Pakistan have not forgotten them