Australian relatives of students at the Army Public School in Peshawar have been left reeling after Tuesday’s attack by the Pakistani Taliban that left 132 children and nine adults dead.
Lubna Uppal’s young cousin, Shayan who is in year three, survived the attack thanks to quick thinking by his teacher.
“He mentioned that they heard some gunfire and because the school was getting a lot of threats, they were prepared for it. They knew something may happen. And the teacher told them to get down under the tables and hold each other’s hands," she told SBS.
Ms Uppal said her cousin’s teacher managed to get the group of students out of a back door and into the safety of nearby houses.
However, the 15-year-old cousin of her sister-in-law, who was also a student at the school, was killed in the attack.
"Before the Taliban were killing the kids, they were actually asking them ‘is your dad in the army?’ And if the kid would say yes, they would kill him; if the kid would say no, they would let him go.”
“It’s really hard for the family to talk about it because for us at least, luckily, he’s alive. For her family, he’s not in the world anymore,” said Ms Uppal.
Living in Australia, both women had to follow the distressing news from afar, relying on information from family in Pakistan.
Her cousin, Shayan, is very distressed.
“A lot of his friends died and he was telling me about that as well. He was really shocked and he was talking about it, but then to distract him I actually changed the topic,” she said.
She said he would have witnessed his class mates wounded and dying.
“He did say that he’d seen some boys on the ground and he wasn’t sure whether they were dead or not, but he did see that they were all bleeding and some of them were on the ground and some of them were escaping and running and – yes, he did.”
The Taliban gunmen who stormed the army-run school in Peshawar, Pakistan were under orders not to kill the very young students, according to the group’s spokesperson Muhammad Khorasani.
But that claim has provided little consolation for the families of the 141 victims.
"He’d seen some boys on the ground and he wasn’t sure whether they were dead or not, but he did see that they were all bleeding."
The Pakistani Taliban have said the attacks were in retaliation for military offensives in North Waziristan.
“I heard from a relative of mine whose kid was also going to the same school, who said before they were killing the kids, they were actually asking them ‘is your dad in the army?’ And if the kid would say yes, they would kill him; if the kid would say no, they would let him go.”
Ms Uppal says her family is not connected with the military, and that the school had received threats from the group.
“There were times when my Aunty got a call from the school, the last few months, and she was told the school was on high alert and there were a fair few times when she had to go and pick up my cousin from school in the middle of the day because they were just getting high alert from the attack.”
“A lot of his friends died... he's really shocked."
“They kind of knew something like that was going to happen but these sorts of things happen so frequently in Pakistan, especially in Peshawar. People are just really used to it. They can’t stop living, they have to go on. They have to go out, work and they have to go to schools.”
Ms Uppal migrated to Australia from Pakistan in 2006. She says regional unrest has increased since she left, and this is despite being taken as a hostage when she herself was in year three.
In 1993, Ms Uppal was on her way to school when the bus was hijacked by three Afghani gunman. They took the students to Islamabad, a few hours away, to negotiate the release of political prisoners with the government.
“They let the younger kids go. They left us for half a day, and because we were really young, and we were crying so much, they actually let us go. But they kept the older kids and they said we’ll keep them hostages. And they kept them hostages for three-four days.”
She says that experience has helped her to understand what her cousin is going through.
“He’s in third grade, and I was in third grade as well – exactly the same age. Yes, I can imagine how he would have taken it. It’s just really shocking at the start and I could actually sense it when I was talking to him over the phone, it was sort of similar – the way he had it in mind.”
