WASHINGTON/NEW YORK: Children ringed Washington’s Dupont Circle, placing electronic candles and flowers as elders prayed for those killed in Peshawar.

“It’s not just the Taliban. Taliban apologists and sympathisers are also responsible for the Peshawar tragedy,” said Mahmud Khan, who had come all the way from Northern Virginia to attend the vigil for Pesha­war’s martyrs, 132 children and nine staff members of the Peshawar’s Army Public School killed by Taliban militants on Tuesday.

Vigils were held in dozens of cities and towns across North America as Pakistani-Americans and their friends got together to mourn the children and condemn the Taliban.

Many wept as names of the children killed in the attack were read out.

The massacre has prompted global revulsion against the Taliban and their supporters. Speakers at these vigils urged action to eliminate the scourge of militancy.

Hundreds of people flocked to Dupont Circle on Wednesday, holding candles and placard, which condemned terrorists and pledged support to the families traumatised by this brutal attack on school children. They braved the cold and stayed in open for more than three hours under a cloudy sky.

According to the George Washington University’s Pak­­istani Student’s Association, the vigil was “not a political rally,” but an occasion to “honour the lives lost” in the Taliban attack at a Pakistani school.

In New York, 5-year-old Warisha Umair lit a candle to mark the occasion as a large crowd offered fateha.

A large number of non-Muslim Americans also attended the vigil in Washington DC and in the Midwood neighbourhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City.

Mehnaz Afridi, a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College in the Bronx, called the attack “the most brutal massacre we’ve seen Muslim vs. Muslim” and called for the Pakistani government to take action against militants.

In New Jersey, Pakistanis, Indian, Christian-Americans and Jews all got together to express solidarity with the victims of Peshawar carnage.

In Austin, Texas, hundreds gathered at the Capitol and prayed for the parents who lost their children in this attack.

“In the loudest voice possible, I want to condemn these fringe groups,” said Imam Mohamed-Umer Esmail of the Nueces Mosque, referring to the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS.

The group offered silent prayers and poems for the slain children. Vigil organiser Wajahat Zaidi read the names of several of the children who were slain against a backdrop of posters adorned with pictures of the dead and prayers.

In Cary, North Carolina, men, women, and children from the Triangle’s Pakistani-American community met at a mosque for a candlelit vigil to pay tribute to the victims of a Taliban attack on a school.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2014