December 16, 2021
Left-arm pacer Shaheen Afridi Thursday paid tribute to the martyred schoolchildren of the Army Public School (APS) who were massacred seven years ago in Peshawar today.
Tributes from politicians, celebrities and others poured in today for the APS Peshawar schoolchildren who were gunned down in cold blood by militants of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on December 16, 2014.
Afridi took to Twitter to share how "the smallest coffins are indeed the heaviest."
"Smallest coffins are indeed the heaviest - 144 innocent lives, 144 proud dreams were shattered. By far, the worst memory as some wounds never heal. They will always remain in our hearts. Forever. #APSPeshawar," he tweeted.
The APS massacre was the only terrorist incident in Pakistan that was publicly condemned by the Afghan Taliban, al-Qaeda, and TTP-Jamaatul Ahrar.
Ehsanullah Ehsan was then spokesman of TTP-JA when the terrorists attacked APS and he, on behalf of his faction, had condemned the brutal killing of schoolchildren.
It was after the APS massacre that civil and military leadership conceived the 20-point National Action Plan in January 2015 to curb terrorism.
The moratorium on the death penalty was lifted so that convicted terrorists could be executed and all the political parties in a meeting on December 24, 2014, supported the move to set up military courts.