The Peshawar attack on Army Public School is an attack on humanity. We fail to understand, which ideology or religious beliefs in the world would propagate killing of children in such a cold-blooded manner. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the parents who lost their children in the carnage. We can feel the trauma that they must be undergoing.

It reminds us of the Beslan school siege in 2004 that had led to the death of 385 people.

I hope the ghastly incident would bring in much needed sanity among the leaders to take action instead of indulging in blame games as who is responsible for this vicious terror outfit.

All these terror outfits that create chaos in Pakistan are offshoots of the mujahideen, who were created with the help of the US in the 1970s to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Over a period of time these killing machine maniacs have mutated into different terror organization.

Also the people of Pakistan need introspection. One cannot classify Taleban into the categories of good Taleban or bad Taleban. They are all terror outfits, and they are enemy of peace. The biggest mistake the Americans and Pakistan military generals did during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was that they did not dismantle this mujahideen program, once the Soviets were driven out.

The need is to shut down all such training camps if any that produce aggressive combatants outside government institutions. Hillary Clinton had once said, “You cannot keep poisonous snakes in your backyard.”

Terror cannot be used as a strategic weapon. No amount of condemnation will bring in the much needed respite to the parents, who dropped their kids to the school in the morning and by late evening find the kids in coffin. Let God give them all the strengths to face this grim reality.

Bhaskara Sujeet Kumar

Riyadh