Peshawar Attack Survivor Recollects the Horrors of the Tragic Day

One year on, we remember the victims, including many children, who were killed in the outrageous Peshawar attacks.

On 16 December last year more than 150 people were killed in the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar. We remember the victims, including many children, who were killed in that outrageous attack.

Aakif Azeem is a survivor of the attack on Army Public School in Peshawar. On 16 December 2014, seven gunmen affiliated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) conducted a terrorist attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar. Aakif has penned down the horrific memories in his blog describing how the ghastly incident changed his life. Here’s how it reads:

The world witnessed a horror on Dec 16th 2014; I witnessed hell. I experienced doomsday as I would call it. To the world it was more than 150 dead bodies, “martyrs”. For me, it was a 150 pieces of my soul.

Some say I was walking the path to becoming an immortal, but this immortality has become my greatest pain. Welcome to my world: broken dreams, lost friends, shattered ambitions – this is me! I am someone the world knows as a hero. Some call me a saviour of many, others call me brave, but, in reality, I am a wreck.

That day has become a bloody hallmark and has changed the course of history as Pakistan fights to see the malice of terrorism to its end. However, the price I paid is much, much more than the world realizes.

Everybody now enjoys their lives, they celebrate festivals on the roads, and live a life without much fear. Turn around, people, and see where I stand: on the graves of many whom I lost that day.

6 months later I had my board exams. As one can expect, till that point many visited our college and promised us “we are with you in this pain and would help with whatever little we can”. We heard about some reserved seats in medical and engineering universities, and took a sigh of relief that all is not lost. We forgot that we were living in Pakistan. The 13th of August snatched away that very little bit of hope that had surfaced.

A disastrous result which made me think, ‘It’s all over’. I saw students who used to score 400s, achieving as low as the 200s this year to end up scoring in the 600s out of 1100 in the board exams. It was then that it struck me that all the promises were hollow as always. No universities offered any relaxation in admissions and it was the same old story as before.

“Why should I suffer?” I ask when everybody enjoys a good life. Why did it have to be me who is at the receiving end of this terrible nightmare, while others benefit from what happened to me? For a good while now I have been attempting to get admission in a university. I wanted to be an astrophysicist, was aiming for foreign scholarships. And all that I get now is tears!

Aakif is very passionate about pursuing a career in Astrophysics and is currently writing a book titled ‘The Darkness Within’ redefining the basis of how it is like to live in Pakistan as a child and growing up.