From Peshawar To Khuzdar: A Decade Of National Tragedy – OpEd
On the morning of May 21, 2025, the city of Khuzdar in Pakistan’s Balochistan province woke to what many assumed was yet another tragic but routine sound, an explosion.
Social media lit up with early reports suggesting a military vehicle had been attacked, a painful pattern that Balochistan has long been forced to endure. But within moments, the narrative took a devastating turn. Images began to surface: a charred bus with the word “school” faintly visible in Urdu, crumpled backpacks tossed beside it, and white dupattas with green borders, unmistakably the uniforms of young girls attending Army Public School (APS). It wasn’t just another attack. It was something far darker. A school bus, filled with little girls in clean, pressed uniforms, had been deliberately targeted by terrorists.
That morning, those children had left home smiling, laughing, clutching their books and lunchboxes, never knowing they would not return. The bus never reached its destination. What was supposed to be another ordinary school day turned into a national nightmare, one that echoed the collective trauma of the 2014 Army Public School massacre in Peshawar. Just like back then, the images were unbearable, the grief suffocating, and the rage, immeasurable.
As official statements poured in, the horror was confirmed. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) revealed what people feared: this was no accident, no mistaken identity. Terrorists had deliberately attacked a school bus. The only “crime” of the girls onboard was that they were daughters of Pakistani soldiers, the brave men fighting to secure this country’s future. These children were targeted because their fathers wear a uniform, because their families represent resilience and sacrifice in the face of those who want to see Pakistan bleed.
Investigations later revealed what many suspected all along, this cowardly attack was not an isolated act of barbarism. It was orchestrated by the proxies of those who have long worked to destabilize Pakistan from the shadows. And let’s be clear: Pakistan has only one open enemy, one that has repeatedly failed to break this nation on the battlefield, and now seeks to inflict pain by killing its children. This is the measure of their defeat: too weak to face our armed forces head-on after defeat in 2025 conflict, they now stoop to attacking unarmed schoolgirls in the hope of breaking our spirit.
Those behind the attack, those who armed the terrorists, planned their escape routes, funded their operations, want Pakistan to fracture. They want fear to replace hope, and grief to silence dreams. But what they fail to understand is that the blood of these innocent girls will not weaken us. It will only deepen our resolve. They have not extinguished futures; they have ignited a fury. And every child killed makes our commitment stronger; not only to defend this country, but to rebuild it so no child ever fears going to school.
Yet we must also be honest with ourselves. This tragedy isn’t just about the enemy across the border, India. It is also a painful reminder of the gaps within, the unresolved grievances, the lack of meaningful engagement with restive regions like Balochistan. For too long, the people of this province have lived between the guns of militants and the silence of the state. Their wounds have festered, and their children are the ones paying the price.
We owe it to the victims not just to punish the attackers, but to confront the system that allows such horrors to recur. Balochistan needs more than security checkpoints; it needs trust, investment, dialogue, and above all justice. Not just the justice of courtrooms, but the kind that heals communities and offers a better future than the one filled with ashes and silence. This attack must not become another entry in our endless archive of national tragedies. These girls deserve more than to be remembered only in mourning. They deserve to be remembered as daughters of resilience, symbols of innocence struck down by hate, but not forgotten. Their laughter must echo louder than the blast that tried to silence it.
As a nation, we’ve been here before too many times. But what defines us is not how many times we are hit. It’s how many times we rise, stronger, clearer in purpose. Today, we must rise again; not only to avenge, but to protect, to educate, to unite.
To those who planned this cowardly attack: you may have taken lives, but you have not taken our will. And to the enemies hiding behind proxies, know this — you will never win. Not against a nation that buries its dead with honor and rises each time with a heart that beats louder for peace, dignity, and justice.
The school bus in Khuzdar may not have reached its destination, but those young girls, in their final journey, have led us to a crossroads. One where we must choose to finally act with the urgency, clarity, and unity this moment demands.
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