Doctors protest Peshawar attack, wear black bands

Ishfaq Tantry

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 18

Doctors in Kashmir today protested against the brutal killing of children in the Peshawar attack by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants, as Grand Mufti (Chief Cleric) of Kashmir Bashir-ud-Din Ahmad termed the attack as “brutal and un-Islamic”.

The medicos and the paramedics in various Kashmir hospitals today wore black badges to express their anger and sorrow over the Tuesday attack on an Army school in Peshawar, in which more than 140 persons, mostly children, were gunned down by the attackers.

“Doctors today held a protest in Kashmir hospitals against the brutal killings of innocent children. Besides, the doctors, medical students and paramedics wore black bands in response to the call given by the Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK),” DAK President Nissar-ul-Hassan said in a statement.

The Peshawar attack has shocked the people in the Kashmir region, which is grappling with violence for over past two decades.

“We are stunned and numb with grief on this bloodshed….This inhuman and ghastly act of terror is against the fundamental principles of humanity and is unacceptable to every human being,” the statement from the doctors’ body said.

The Kashmir’s Grand Mufti said Peshawar-like attacks were the biggest challenge to the Islamic societies.

“This attack is an attack against the whole humanity,” Mufti Bashir-ud-Din said in a statement, urging the international community to use its influence in helping Pakistan improve its internal law and order situation.

Expressing sympathy with the parents of the children killed in the attack, he said, “In Islam even harming children, women, frail and old during the war is forbidden.”