Omar, Mehbooba condemn Peshawar attack

Ishfaq Tantry

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 16

The terrorist attack on a Peshawar school by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militants has been condemned by almost all sections in Kashmir.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and opposition PDP leader and MP Mehbooba Mufti have termed the attack as barbaric. Moderate Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz said such inhuman acts had no place in Islam.

“What terrible, heart-breaking images of the attack in #Peshawar. Inhuman & barbaric don’t even begin to describe the perpetrators”, Chief Minister Omar said on twitter while condemning the Peshawar attack.

Omar tweeted: “Schools are supposed to be places of sanctuary and today these Godless animals (TTP) have converted one into a killing field.”

The Chief Minister also took on the people who said that Pakistan deserved it. “And to my fellow countrymen who say Pakistan got what it deserves — shame on you. They are children likes yours and mine,” Omar further wrote on social networking site Twitter.

Condemning the TTP attack, PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said the “atrocity” of this proportion should “outrage” the feelings of every human being.

“My heart and thoughts go out to the parents and families of children who have lost their lives in the attack,” she said while terming the attack the “worst ever form of barbarism and crime against humanity.”

Expressing “grief and sorrow” over the death of more than 130 children in Peshawar, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq termed the attack “cowardly”. “Such terror acts are a clear violation of the basic principles of Islam and humanity. Killing of innocent people is condemnable and deplorable irrespective of wherever they occur,” Mirwaiz said while adding that the “barbarians and murderers” can never be “well-wishers” of Islam and Pakistan.

Mirwaiz said a special prayer session (Gaibana Namz-e-Jinazah) would be offered at Jama Masjid, Srinagar, on Wednesday for the children killed in the attack.

“We strongly condemn the killing of innocent schoolchildren and teachers. The culprits behind this barbaric and inhuman act and conspiracy should be punished and hanged,” Kashmir Bar general secretary M Ashraf Bhat said while condemning the attack.