PESHAWAR: Just days after Prime Minister Imran Khan said his government was in talks with factions of the Pakistani Taliban, a banned militant group responsible for some of the country’s worst attacks, grieving parents of children killed in a 2014 militant assault denounced any negotiations with, or amnesty for, the banned group.
On December 16, 2014, 134 children and 19 adults were killed in a Pakistan Taliban (TTP) assault on a military school, the deadliest militant attack in the country’s history. Thousands of Pakistanis have been killed in violence launched by the TTP in the last two decades and the group has accepted responsibility for several high profile attacks, including an assassination attempt on activist and now Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai.
Last week, Prime Minister Imran Khan said his government was holding talks with factions of the Pakistani Taliban and would forgive members who lay down weapons. In a statement soon after Khan’s interview, the TTP called on its fighters to continue their attacks. The group denied divisions in its ranks and made no acknowledgement of the ongoing talks.
On Thursday evening, parents of children killed in the assault on the Army Public School (APS) gathered in Peshawar, the main town in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, for a protest rally.
“Who has given the right to the prime minister to pardon our killers?” Muhammad Tahir, the father of late student Shaheer Khan, told the media at the protest. “We’ll never ever allow you to do this. We want to publicly hang the killers of our children.”
Parents of children killed in 2014 in a Pakistan Taliban attack on a military school hold a protest against the government in Peshawar, Pakistan, on October 7, 2021. (AN Photo)
“We don’t want the killers of our children to be pardoned so easily,” Zulaikha Bibi, the mother of Sadia Gul, a teacher who was killed in the 2014 attack, told Arab News. “This isn’t his [prime minister’s] prerogative but the right of families.”
Shahana Ajmal, the mother of late student Asfand Khan, said she was protesting Khan’s plan to hold negotiations with the TTP.
“Are you [prime minister] shaking hands and holding talks with those beasts who martyred our children?” she said. “Aren’t the lives lost of our children enough? We don’t accept this decision [to hold talks].”
“It is said that one round of talks has been held,” she added. “Why are we not consulted and don’t we have any share in this?”
A mother of a student killed in 2014 in a Pakistan Taliban attack on a military school at a protest demonstration against the government in Peshawar on October 7, 2021. (AN Photo)
