ABU DHABI When Amir Javed, 31, goes to Pakistan next, the first thing he will do is make the long four-hour 376km road trip from his home in Sargodha to his old school on Peshawar’s Warsak Road.
It’s been over a week since 145 people, including 132 children – aged between eight and 18 – were killed in the country’s most gruesome terror attacks in recent times but ghastly images of Army Public School’s (APS) blood splattered walls and benches refuse to leave his mind.
“I walked the same corridors, used the same auditorium and sat in the same classrooms for years. There’s now blood written all over it,” says Javed, a fraud analyst at an Abu Dhabi bank who completed his schooling at APS in 2002. “I could not believe my ears when I first heard the killings took place in my school. Then when I saw the gory images, I could not believe me eyes. Is this the school I went to, is it really the place I knew so well? I keep asking myself.”
Javed, who first moved to the UAE in 2007, says APS is known all over the country for being a ‘great institution’. “Not only does the school produce great students but also disciplined human beings who were nurtured on love and care. We had all kinds of facilities – from football to basketball to cricket. That it will be ravaged like this, its walls breached and innocent children killed in cold blood, who could have imagined?,” asks Javed, whose younger brother Ashraf, now based in Dubai, too went to the same school.
Massacre
Terror struck the school around 10am on December 16 when six gunmen reportedly dressed in paramilitary uniforms entered the premises from the back after scaling the walls. Armed with automatic weapons, the men moved straight to the auditorium at the centre of the school and opened fire indiscriminately on children who were gathered there for a function.
Although Javed did not know any of the student victims personally, he knew at least two of the teachers who were killed in the attack.
“The principal Ms Kazi was such a dignified and polished woman. She taught us English and I remember how she pulled some of us who previously came from a non-English background up to the level of the others. Whatever little English I speak today is all due to her and it pains to know the fate she suffered,” recalls Javed, the son of an ex-Pakistan army personnel.
The other teacher he knew was Nawab Ali Khan, who taught Islamic studies. “He never taught me in a classroom but I knew him well because he would organise our extra curricular activities. He was free spirited and always encouraged us to pursue excellence outside of our classrooms. Can’t believe he is no more.”
