Pakistan on Wednesday began burying 132 students killed in a grisly attack on their school by Taliban militants that has heaped pressure on the government to do more to tackle an increasingly aggressive Taliban insurgency.
Anger mixed with the grief as people looked to the authorities to act decisively. In an apparent response to public opinion after what may have been the deadliest militant attack in Pakistani history, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced he had lifted a moratorium on the death penalty.
At a vigil in the capital Islamabad, Fatimah Khan, 38, said she was devastated by the atrocity.
“I don’t have words for my pain and anger,” she said. “They slaughtered those children like animals.”
Sixteen-year-old Naba Mehdi, who attends the Army School in the nearby garrison city of Rawalpindi, had a message of defiance for the Taliban.
“We’re not scared of you,” she said. “We will still study and fight for our freedom. This is our war.”
When asked what the government should do, her mother interrupted: “Hang them. Hang them all without mercy.”
The focus was on Army Chief Raheel Sharif as he visited Afghanistan, where the two sides - whose relationship is strained after decades of mistrust - discussed how to crack down on militants hiding on their common border.
A Pakistani source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the army chief Raheel Sharifhad asked the Afghan side to help catch and hand over Pakistani Taliban Chief Mullah Fazlullah, who is hiding in the lawless mountains on the Afghan side of the frontier.
“It has been our long-standing demand,” the senior military official told Reuters. “And if Afghanistan does not help us then we have other options, including the option of hot pursuit.”He added the army chief went to Kabul with “incontrovertible evidence” that the attack was masterminded in Afghanistan.
Raheel Sharif got assurances on Wednesday from the Afghan government and International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (Isaf) for action against a Kunar-based Taliban splinter group which is believed to be behind the massacre.
