From Malala Yousafzai to Peshawar school children – the latest being this
week (December 5,2023) – school children remain high on Pakistan’s terror trail.
Militant groups target innocent victims to settle scores with the state authority
even as the latter vacillates in its carrot-and-stick policy, often colluding with
the ‘good’ ones among them to cause mayhem in neighbouring countries.
The ten who carried out the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008 were not exactly
students but were denied proper education, or confined to religious teachings
in madrassas. To be sure, the seminaries have also been attacked.
Al Shahab, Boko Haram, the Islamic State and its various franchises and
many more hold children as hostages at schools and hospitals. Of them, the
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have emerged as the front-runner for
global leadership. It is significant because Pakistan is a large country with a
high population and unlike most others, although army-influenced, has a
democratic polity.
Four of the seven injured on December 5 were children in an improvised
explosive device (IED) blast on Peshawar’s Warsak Road. According to
Warsak Superintendent of Police Arshad Khan, the incident took place near
the Peshawar Public School.
The authorities initially claimed that there was no evidence that the school or
the school children were the targets of the Islamist extremists and that none
of the children was “in school uniform”. But the condemnation that followed
from the highest in the country – the president, caretaker prime minister, the
ministers in charge of law-keeping and political leaders — all cited the children
being the victims.
The news went down in the media outlets’ priority before the day ended and
no group immediately claimed credit for the explosion. The TTP, which is the
umbrella group or one of its constituents has the record of being involved.
Pakistan has witnessed an uptick in terror activities in recent months,
especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces after the TTP
ended its ceasefire with the government in November last year. According to
data released by the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies
(PICSS), the country experienced a 34 per cent increase in anti-state
violence last month.
Even if low on casualties, the December 5 attack is a grim reminder to
Pakistan and the world alike of December 14, 2014, when the Army Public
School (APS) Peshawar was attacked, killing 157 people, mostly children in
classrooms and their teachers.
TTP leader Ehsanullah Ehsan claimed credit and spokesman Mohammad
Khurasani said the militants had been “forced” to launch the attack in
response to army attacks. The ‘retaliation’ was to the attacks on its camps
and the fighters. The Pakistan Army had launched Zarb-e-Azb, a major
operation which only resulted in the TTP crossing over to the tribal belt along
the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Significantly, the same Ehsanullah claimed credit for attacking Malala
Yousafzai on October 9, 2012. She was shot in the head on her school bus
for speaking against the Taliban for targeting schools, especially girls’
schools. She survived after being airlifted to Britain and was eventually
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Ehsanullah, in Pakistan’s captivity later, managed to escape from the jail after
a ‘deal’ with the Pakistan Army failed. The government did not admit it but a
former army officer, then a minister, who had reached the failed deal
confirmed his escape.
On February 14, 2020, amidst reports that the Imran Khan Government was
trying to rehabilitate the TTP as part of another agreement, parents who had
lost their children at the APS protested and demanded how Ehsan had
escaped. Successive governments have maintained silence on Ehsan.
As TTP continues its attacks, the safety of children, particularly girls, remains
elusive in Pakistan because the government plays footsie with the militants.
Other groups are also involved. The annual report of the UN Secretary-
General on Children and Armed Conflict, covering the January-December
2017 period stated that Pakistan-based banned terror outfits Jaish-e-
Mohammed (JeM) and Hizbul Mujahideen recruited and used children in
Jammu and Kashmir during clashes with security forces.”
The APS attack has been the subject of research. The National Library of
Medicine, based in Bethesda, the USA, collected data within six months of
the attack and using the Sampling Strategy, concluded: “Targeting children in
schools is an attack on education for keeping them away from schools. This
is done because education develops the skill of critical thinking, which makes
young people question the concepts of hatred and decrease the violence and
terrorism in societies.”