THE Peshawar incident was only the second one that made me cry. It shook me to the core of my heart.

I had heard stories about how terrorists and extremists are brainwashed so that they can no longer differentiate between right and wrong, good and evil. What I saw on TV that black day made me think whoever did this could not be a normal human being with a thinking head, let alone a compassionate heart.

We lost a part of our future that day. It was a bad dream. I hope and pray that this does not and must not become a distant memory. We as a nation tend to forget things too soon.

Ayesha Choudary

Canada

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2014