16/12/2024
Lahore: The Student body of Government College University Lahore (GCUL) and Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) organized candlelight vigils as memorials today to commemorate the 10 years since the 2014 Army Public School terrorist attack that claimed 149 lives, including 132 children.
The events were held to highlight the concerns about terrorism's impacts in Pakistan. Military counter-terrorism operations have been criticized for escalating regional conflicts rather than doing something to stop them, with multiple terror incidents that still continue to plague the people at peripheries while leaving the citizens in a state of continuous terror and fear. Key terrorist attacks include the 2014 APS massacre, 2017 Quetta Police Academy bombing, and 2017 Peshawar Church attack.
The central spokesperson of Progressive Students' Collective (PSC) Comrade Ali Abdullah Khan, while speaking to the participants of candlelight vigil at GC University Lahore, questioned the so called escape of Ehsanullah Ehsan, former Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesperson previously in military custody. "The state is the direct culprit of the lives of more than seventy thousand Pashtons lost during counter-terrorism operations," he said.
Student participants in the candlelight vigil held at LUMS expressed their continued anger over military actions in Pashtun and Baloch regions with increasing violent authoritarianism.
Organizer PSC Comrade Sohaib addressed the students on candlelight vigil at LUMS. He underscored the lasting trauma of the APS attack and the ineffectiveness of the military in addressing terrorism in Pakistan.
