Pakistani School Kids Forced To Undergo Gun Training In Wake Of Taliban Massacre

Pakistani school kids are being forced to undergo gun training following the recent Taliban massacre at a school in Peshawar.

The students will also being trained in bomb disposal and strategies such as hiding from terrorists in the event of a terror attack.

The brand new government directives follow the December 16 massacre, which saw a group of terrorists storm the Public Army School in Peshawar, killing 145 people, including 132 schoolchildren.

School kids in Multan, Punjab, received training from a bomb disposal squad, as well as classes for girls on how to locate and defuse an explosive device and offer assistance to injured people.

A female student at Multan Public School told Dawn.com, “We have received training and now we will utilise this if the need arises.”

Meanwhile, in the Sindh province, teachers and students at the Mama Parsi school were trained by police at a centre in Karachi. As Sindh Police’s Maqsood Memon told reporters,

“This is our expertise in counter-terrorism. We are doing for the government but we thought it should be given to civil society in case of an emergency — they should know what to do if the need arises.”

Pakistan’s information minister Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani said the training would allow school staff members to “engage” attackers for a short period of time before law enforcement personnel could respond.

He told reporters on January 13, “The provincial cabinet has decided to allow teachers and other staff members to keep their licensed weapons with them so that in case of any eventuality they could engage attackers for initial five to 10 minutes before personnel of law-enforcement agencies will show up to respond to the attack.”

It is a sad reality that school kids in Pakistan have to undergo this type of training and live in constant fear of a terrorist attack, like the one last December.