Pakistan closes educational institutes in multiple cities on anniversary of Peshawar school attack

A school staff closes the main gate of a school in Lahore, Pakistan, on September 28, 2023. (AFP/File)

• On Dec. 16, 2014, militants stormed Army Public School in Peshawar, killing 134 children and over a dozen staffers
• The attack was claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has once again mounted assaults against Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities have announced closure of schools and colleges in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore on the anniversary of a deadly attack on Army Public School (APS) Peshawar, which killed more than 130 children in 2014.
A group of heavily armed militants belonging to the proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) faction entered the army-run school building on December 16, 2014, and killed 134 children and over a dozen staff members. The incident took place in a high security area in Peshawar in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. 
The massacre at the school sparked worldwide condemnation and in response, Pakistan reinstated the death penalty after a six-year moratorium and executed many TTP militants a well as launched a military campaign in the country’s northwestern tribal districts to purge the area of TTP militants.
Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in attacks claimed by the TTP since 2007, including an assassination attempt on Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai. The country has also seen a renewed surge in attacks since a fragile truce between the TTP and the government broke down in Nov. 2022.
“It is notified that all public/private schools and colleges shall remain closed on 16th December, 2024 (Monday) within the revenue limits of Islamabad Capital Territory,” the Islamabad administration said in a notification.
In a statement, Irfan Nawaz Memon, the Islamabad deputy commissioner, said the holiday was announced in “remembrance of the martyrs of the Peshawar Army Public School tragedy.”
Similar notifications were issued by authorities in the garrison city of Rawalpindi and Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province.
In recent months, Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, which border Afghanistan, have witnessed a number of attacks by the TTP and other religious and separatist militant groups that targeted security forces convoys and check posts, besides targeted killings and kidnappings of law enforcers, government officials and civilians.
The TTP, or the Pakistani Taliban, is a separate group but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban.
Pakistan has frequently accused neighboring Afghanistan of sheltering and supporting militant groups, urging the Taliban administration in Kabul to prevent its territory from being used by armed factions to launch cross-border attacks. Afghan officials deny involvement, insisting Pakistan’s security issues are an internal matter of Islamabad.