Small coffins are the heaviest to carry said Usama Naseer, a survivor of the Army Public School Peshawar. Since the incident life had changed for everyone at APS. The memories still haunt them and make reality a living night mare.

Usama Naseer recalls the incident when his friends were killed by terrorists while sitting for exams.He could not believe it when he saw all of them drenched in blood. In the morning they had met, joked around and teased eachother, and by afternoon we were separated forever. “This incident had shaken me a lot but we moved on because life has to go on.”

He said, “The terrorists asked students from Army background to step aside and they were shot at point blank range. In the firing other students were also killed.”

Zain ul Abadin was a very brave student who tried to fight the terrorists but lost the battle in the end. Usama said, “In the hall when Zain saw that the terrorists had attacked he tried to stop one of them but he was shot. Zain got up once again to fight him but the second bullet got him.”

Trauma of the incident took almost all students to counselors; Usama Naseer was one of them. He had taken few sessions with counselors after which his family stood by his side and helped him get back to normal life. There was a time when he would not leave his room, meet people or even talk to anyone. But today he is stable enough that he is living in Lahore alone while carrying on his studies.

For Usama one of the most painful things to happen after the attack was, “I was asked why I did nothing to save the children and left them to die, as we were the eldest class.” He added, “This was the most painful thing. How can anyone think like this? We had nothing in our hand, we were there to study not to fight.”

Every child by matric has an ambition that they want to pursue as a career. Usama had dreamt of being a doctor but after the APS incident he aims to join Pakistan Army to serve the nation in a different way!