Peshawar - Mehwish Ghani cannot forget the day she bid her brother Saqib Ghani farewell when he was leaving home for the Army Public School in December 2014 – a day that sealed their fate because his brother was among many others martyred in a terrorist attack.

“Ammi jee daer firing de, please pray! (Dear mom, incessant firing is underway, please pray!),” was the last message that popped up on my mother’s phone screen right at 10:45am on December 16, 2014, Mehwish said. Saqib Ghani was a student of bachelors (4th year).

She said that according to two of the eyewitnesses, her brother Saqib Ghani and his friend stood like a shield in front of their female teacher as the two terrorists entered their class.

“We, upon receiving his body, saw so many small hairs stuck in his nails and a few marks of nails on his face as well, which proved how bravely he had confronted the attackers,” she said.

“It actually took us too long to realise that he won’t die a natural death. He was in Class-2 when he got out of his bed and ran excitedly towards Ammi in the morning, saying that he saw Prophet Muhammad (SAW) in his dreams, who handed him over a clay vessel having red sherbet in it, which was later on predicted by some religious scholars as jaam-e-shahadat (bowl of martyrdom),” she said while speaking to this correspondent.

She said she saw her brother in a photo on Twitter along with two other casualties, but remained silent or maybe in denial until her elder brother found his name at 3:10 pm amongst martyrs in the list displayed at CMH, Peshawar.

Falak Naz, an elderly mother, lost her two sons to the APS tragedy. She now has two daughters, after the death of her two sons.

“There is not a single day that passes without sobs, since I am having the mobile phone with Facebook account of my younger son Saifullah Durrani and my husband is having the phone of our elder son Noorullah Durrani, with his Facebook ID too; each day we see their Facebook posts and cry,” she said.

Gul Shehzad lost her daughter Sadia, a teacher, to the incident. Gul said that he himself has retired from Peshawar Public School and College.

“I also asked Sadia to join the same school, but she said she was joining Army Public School, being a secure institution and also because she said she liked an ‘environment of discipline’. But she was unaware of how her decision was going to seal her fate,” recalls Gul, about 63 years old now. 

Ajoon Khan, who lost his son Asfand Khan Shaheed, to the incident, told The Nation that while the judicial commission had announced the inquiry report, many things still are not clear.

“The punishment has not been announced the way we wanted it to be. The judicial inquiry just announced that it was a security lapse and that if the members of ‘one’s own house’ are involved in something, how can such a thing be averted. However, now the Supreme Court will take a final decision. We want the Supreme Court to nominate those responsible for the security lapse on that day and register an FIR against all of them,” said Ajoon, who is also president of Shuhada-e-APS Forum.

After 2014 attack, the government and military authorities implemented a National Action Plan in January 2015 to crackdown on terrorist networks in the country. While the authorities claim to have largely eliminated militant sanctuaries via military actions, putting an end to militant attacks remains a challenge due to a 2,430km porous border with the war-ravaged Afghanistan