THE merciless killing of 132 innocent schoolchildren by the terrorists at the Army Public School, Peshawar, is the most gruesome, cowardly act which we have never witnessed in Pakistan.

This has been rightly called the darkest day in the history of Pakistan, master-minded by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan led by the outlawed Fazullulah, who operates from Afghanistan as reported in Dawn (Dec 17).

The details of this barbaric terrorist attack will be unveiled in due course, but this is well known that it was claimed to be a reaction to the military operation in North Waziristan. These terrorists chose to kill the schoolchildren to throw entire Pakistan into grief.

Your editorial ‘New blood-soaked benchmark’ (Dec 17) rightly blames the tragedy on intelligence failure. It has hit the nail on the head that we ‘should attempt to attack the ideological roots of militancy and societal reach of militants’ if the menace is to be uprooted.

Come to think of it, doesn’t the government know that without eliminating the root cause, the militancy cannot be wiped out? Furthermore, without the local help, the militants cannot carry on such dastardly acts. But then why is no worthwhile action being taken in these directions? The army alone cannot do it.

Unless the nation resolves to attack the root cause of the militancy, we can only blame our stars for the mess we are in.

S.M. Anwar

Karachi

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2014