ISLAMABAD: President Mamnoon Hussain has approved a summary to confer Tamgha-i-Shujaat (the highest civil award for bravery) on the victims of the Peshawar Army Public School carnage.

The most shocking terrorist attack in the history of the country claimed the lives of 145 people, 135 of them children, on December 16 last year.

An announcement issued by the presidency on Thursday said: “On a summary initiated by Cabinet Division, the president has approved the prime minister’s advice for conferment of ‘Sitara-i-Shujaat (posthumous) and ‘Tamgha-i-Shujaat’ (posthumous) on the teachers and students/staff of Army Public School, Peshawar.”

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An official in the presidency told Dawn that several meetings had been held on the issue and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had endorsed the decision to grant one of the top civil awards to the school’s principal Tahira Kazi -- who was burnt to death by terrorists -- teachers, staffers, schoolchildren and a civilian, who had gone to the school for a personal task and was killed after fighting with terrorists for about 15 minutes.

It has also been decided that the injured survivors will also be given awards.

Earlier, the presidency had decided to award Tamgha-i-Shujaat to a police constable, who was killed while intercepting a suicide bomber outside the gate of the Peshawar Press Club in December 2009. However, the summary approved by the president did not carry his name.

Media reports quoted witnesses as saying that policeman Riaz-u-Din had stopped the suicide bomber at the main entrance of the press club in which dozens of journalists were present.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2015

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