WE recently had the martyrdom anniversary (Jan 7) of our national hero Aitzaz Hasan Bangash. The teenager, who belonged to Hangu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, set an example of bravery when he sacrificed his life by preventing a suicide bomber from entering his school at a Hangu village.
His act of unparalleled courage saved several lives as there were more than 2,000 students at the time of the incident.
Aitzaz embraced martyrdom at the scene, but no one inside the school was harmed, while he had asked his schoolmates to run away when the terrorist was about to explode himself.
Aitzaz’s father on his martyrdom proudly said his son made his mother cry but saved hundreds of mothers from crying for their children. Later, he was awarded ‘Sitara-i-Shujaat’, a civil award for gallantry.
National
January 6, 2021
HANGU: The family members of Aitzaz Hasan Shaheed on Tuesday announced that they would not mark the seventh death anniversary of the martyred student due to the alleged indifferent attitude of the government and the security threats.
Mujahid Ali Bangash and Mujtaba Hasan, the father and brother of Aitzaz Hasan, said that Aitzaz Hasan Shaheed sacrificed his life and saved the lives of hundreds of students while preventing a suicide bomber from entering the school in Ibrahimzai village in Hangu on January 6, 2014. They said that more than 400 students were taking classes at the time of the incident. The family members said that federal and provincial governments had made several promises of compensation to the affected family and facilities to the area but it had not even honoured a single pledge despite passage of seven years. They said that Aitzaz Hasan was a national hero but the family of Shaheed student was being kept deprived of the relief being given
Eternal grief
The writer is a lawyer, formerly practising and teaching law in Lahore, and currently based in Singapore. He holds an LLM from New York University where he was a Hauser Global Scholar. He tweets @HNiaziii
Why must children suffer for this country to realise its mistakes?
The list of children we have failed is long: Zainab Ansari, Malala Yousafzai, Aitzaz Hasan, the children of APS Peshawar. They had to suffer for the sins of this country’s rulers and elite who have grown so distant from the plight of common people that only the suffering of children gets their attention.