Charsadda attack: These mercenaries are no freedom fighters
Yet another tragedy hits the very heart and nerve of Pakistani society. Another educational institution is stuck brutally and mercilessly killing many students in cold blood, a few kilometres from the famous Pakistani city of Peshawar.
The city has been in eye of the storm since the last three decades or more largely because of its geographical proximity with war-torn Afghanistan. A target of back-to-back large-scale bomb explosions during the Soviet invasion days of Afghanistan in the '80s, the same happened as a result of American invasion since 9/11.
Till date, Afghanistan remains war torn and volatile, and so is Pakistan's tribal area stretched along Pak-Afghan border. The city of Peshawar still bears the brunt of the situation as it is only a few kilometres from the same border, a gateway to some of these troubled tribal areas.
The tragedy at Charsadda's Bacha Khan University, a few kilometres from Peshawar, replicates the same pattern, strategy and brutality that the students of Peshawar's Army Public School (APS) suffered around a year ago .
The same gun-wielding blood-hounding sub-human psychopaths, armed with bombs and suicide vests, just went on a killing spree against defenceless, innocent souls. The only difference between the two tragedies is the age group that was slain mercilessly. The APS victims were in their teens, Bacha Khan University students were more grown up adults. So why were these students targeted?
Simple, as these illiterate, indoctrinated mercenaries consider modern education as a sin, and such institutions as soft targets. Secondly, they want to avenge killings of hundreds of their fellows who died in military operations, especially in North Waziristan during the last one and a half year.
Moreover, the anti-terrorism narrative coming out of educational institutions, media houses and different segments of society is making these terrorists jittery and revengeful. Already they are being neutralised by the overwhelming fire power of Pakistani army that is already into the final phase of eliminating their hideouts in far-flung areas of Pakistani tribal areas, especially along the porous stretch of several hundred kilometres of Pak-Afghan border.
The current tragedy happened just a few days into the first anniversary of Army Public School national tragedy that took place on December 16, 2014. Around 120 innocent pupils, their teachers, were slaughtered mercilessly then. The same lethal form of merciless terrorism unleashed on innocent students of Bacha Khan University.
Around 15 students, one teacher, and four guards perished in the ambush on January 20, 2016. The slain students were adults, grown-up graduates and under graduates. All geared up for practical lives, professional careers, most of them readying themselves to become helping hands for their households. Many were to be the sole breadwinners of their families.
Amongst them a chemistry teacher, Hamid Hussain, 32, who died while trying to save the students. A PhD from UK, Hamid stands tall amongst teachers for laying his life for a just cause. With tears filled eyes his brother and father narrated what a gem they have lost, the most educated of the siblings. "Please show me the face of these killers, I will avenge the death of my son," cried another grief-stricken father whose grown-up son was killed in cold blood.
But as they were laid to rest after the funeral rites, with them were buried several dreams, hopes, happiness, joys and life-long struggles of their parents and elders. Life has come to a grinding halt for these families as they mourn and remember their dead.
Amidst national rhetoric that dubs such tragedies as great sacrifice, the latest tragedy is also raising voices that are questioning the effectiveness of the strategy to deal with the menace of terrorism targeting students and educational institutions.
Though two tragedies cannot be compared, yet Army Public School (APS) Peshawar incident was more horrific in nature. Around 120 students, most of them in their teens, were slain, most at point blank range. The incident had shook all segments of the Pakistani society. Politicians and generals, backed by civil society had joined hands then.
One year down the road as 2016 was being touted for winding down the military operations against terrorists on western border, a fresh wave of terror has swept the country killing more than 60 people since the beginning of New Year. Enough damage has been done, and pain inflicted. The slain young university graduates with dreams of shining future in their eyes fell victim to a mindset - cruel, barbaric, sub-human to the core.
These battle-hardened psychopaths, illiterate and jingoist, find no moral or religious support in the Pakistani or the larger Muslim society that stretches from Pakistan's western border deep into central Asia and beyond.
Yet, they are hell bent on inflicting pain and suffering on Pakistanis, irrespective of their social standing. In recent past they had masked themselves as the Pakistani Taliban, closely knitted with al-Qaeda militants. Now they have found refuge under the more fanatic and lethal Daesh mindset that is fast preying on hundreds of trained militants, who are actually free mercenaries being used in war torn Afghanistan and bordering areas of AfPak region by spy agencies and military establishments of the world to further their geostrategic goals.
Now we hear that many Pakistani fugitive warlords, especially Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leaders are hiding in areas of Afghanistan, bordering with Pakistan. The same group is learnt to have struck in APS, and now in Bacha Khan University.
Recent photos of the dead militants were released on yesterday after the attack, by their handlers as they prepared for their heinous mission at some unknown place during the past days.
Pakistani military traces roots of these terrorists to Afghan area, and claims they are in knowledge of the whole scheme, perpetrators, handlers etc. In fact, the recent Pakistani military push against terrorists has transformed the whole Pak-Afghan border region into a hot bed of confrontation against militancy and terrorism.
As terrorists fight for their survival in this volatile region, they feel compelled to glorify their heinous acts through their misplaced and misinterpreted ideology of Islam. But mercenaries, as history stands witness, are no freedom fighters. No religion or polity backs them up. They always disappear in history.