By Mati Ullah Khan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The sacrifices of 132 innocent children in the deadliest terror attack at the army-run school in Peshawar, Pakistan witnessed in its recent history seem to have not gone in vain as terrorist incidents have vastly reduced.
A group of heavily armed militants affiliated with outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) stormed the army public school in Peshawar on December 16 last year, and carried out the massacre of 144 persons mostly children.
The incident prompted a worldwide strong condemnation and forced the country’s civilian and military leadership to pursue the war on terror with more determination and vigor.
The new motivation yielded fruitful results and ended with the adoption of consensus-based anti-terror 20-point national plan of action, aiming at to root out the menace from the country once and for all.
Though the armed forces had already been engaged in a massive operation against terror outfits in the volatile northwestern tribal region since June 2014 but anti-terror actions were further accelerated and scope of the operation was also widened following the APS attack.
Not only the air strikes in tribal region and ground operation across the country were increased by it was also decided to bring all financiers of terrorists, facilitators and abettors to justice without any discrimination.
Under an executive order, a six-year ban on implementation of death penalties was lifted and 21st Constitutional amendment was unanimously passed by the Parliament to legalize military courts.
Resultantly, a peaceful environment to a large extent began blanketing Pakistan and number of terror-related incidents considerably decreased.
Now as the country is observing the first anniversary of the martyrs of APS and their sacrifices are being commemorated, the nation has reiterated its resolve to not to ever give up and let nefarious designs of the terrorists to become reality.
