Lying on cots under the open skies, young boys in
Peshawar donated so much blood for those injured and fighting for their
lives after Tuesday’s school attack that hospitals ran out of storage
space.
While the dead were being given a mass burial
with their families shedding tears of sorrow and anger, and the toll
from the attack rose to 148, the government called an all-party
conference, where politicians put on a brave face but appeared helpless
about what future course to take.
The best that Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif could come up with was an announcement that by
next week, there would be a plan in place to counter terrorism.
“We
have decided that all parliamentary and political leaders will decide a
national consensus to defeat terrorism,” he said, adding that officials
from intelligence agencies would also be taken on board.
Giving
in to demands from the army, Mr. Sharif announced an end to a
moratorium on the death penalty in terror-related cases which have put
over 400 on death row.
The only man who appeared to
have a clear plan was Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif who,
without waiting for protocol, simply informed the Afghan leadership that
he was flying in to meet them for a day-long visit accompanied by DG
ISI General Rizwan Akhter.
The official version put
out by the Inter-Services Public Relations was that in meetings with his
Afghan counterpart as well as President Ashraf Ghani, and International
Security Assistance Force commander General Joseph Dunford, the
Pakistan Army chief shared “essential intelligence”.
Sources
said Gen. Raheel had demanded that either they help in extraditing
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Mullah Fazaullah, or allow Pakistan to
go after him.
He was said to have shown them
intelligence reports that the Peshawar attack was masterminded by TTP
from Afghanistan. Sources said the Uzbek Islamic Movement was also
involved.
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