Massacre survivor Aakif Azeem on emotional reopening of Peshawar school
The scene today outside Aakif Azeem's school was anything but studious. Azeem, 18, returned to the school this week along with other classmates. He's in his final year at the Peshawar Army School, the site of the Dec. 16th Taliban attack. That's when gunmen murdered 134 of Azeem's fellow-students and 16 of his teachers. Azeem himself was shot at.
"Coming through those gates, we started remembering what happened," Azeem tells As It Happens host Carol Off about his first day back. "I was with my friends, so I told them [as we were about to walk through] that this is for all the boys who left us.
"We went in and we were crying, all of us. Sitting in those classrooms, even now there are some bullet holes in our classes. Seeing that, it really scared us. But we have to go on."
This was just his second day back in class.
It was also the day the politicians decided to show up. Opposition leader Imran Khan and regional first minister Pervez Khattak said they were there to show their respect. Some parents felt otherwise. A crowd gathered. The cars were blocked. There were boos, and tears. People scuffled with police, and in the end the politicians were turned away at the school's gates.
Azeem says he still has nightmares about the school attack.
"I cannot forget anything," he says. "I saw these bodies lying in the corridors and I just dragged them inside, pulling them in, so that the attackers would not do anything else to them... the smell that was there. I even sleep and I just sense it around, the smell of blood and all that gunfire. It really just horrifies me still now."
Azeem goes on to say: "Our revenge is not with the bullets and the guns. It's with the pen."
Other Peshawar Army School students shared their thoughts and photos on social media upon their return to school.
Talha Munir Paracha posted this before-and-after photo which went viral. He recreated a photo with three of his friends, two of whom were killed in the attack.