Some women tell stories of how extremists have prevented them receiving an education.

One says she was allowed by her parents to go to school (“being a girl that was an unusual privilege to get”). One day, however, she had just left school when it was hit by a bomb planted by the Taliban, trapping one of her friends. “I rushed back towards the school to locate my friend,” she says. “The building had turned into rubble. The scene inside was horrible. Pieces of flesh were scattered everywhere.” She is now in a refugee camp, a loner who does not like to go outside or to socialise. “This event has totally changed my life,” she says.

Aman remembers how he performed poorly at primary school due to bullying by the elder cousins he attended with. Moving onto lower secondary school, he found that there were no proper classes, so he transferred to another school. Unfortunately, he was then savagely beaten by a teacher because his previous schooling had left him far below the required standard in the English language.

“I was unable to stand up,” he remembers. “I would even bleed when I would go to the bathroom. I was bed-ridden for 15 days.” He left school as a result and is now a day labourer: “I am daily wager because of the physical punishment meted out to me by a teacher.”

A girl was humiliated in her madressah when she missed a day’s schooling due to her mother’s illness. Her teacher cut her hair off in front of the rest of the students. After that, she refused to return. “My life was dropped into the darkness of illiteracy,” she says. “I rejected education forever.”

"I am from Neelum Valley in Kashmir. There used to be a constant presence of fear in our house due to crossfire at Line of Control. The security situation also affected me and my siblings’ education since our school was destroyed in an attack.

Forced by ever deteriorating security situation and constant fear, my family moved. My siblings and I could not continue our education, and I was forced to attend a madressah. The situation in my hometown not only cost us our privileged status in terms of family property, but also minimised and virtually eliminated our access to quality education.

There are times when I remember my friends and peers from back home, and I worry about their safety. Even today, I often have nightmares of bombing and crossfire. I had to migrate away from my hometown at a young age and have missed it ever since. The depression of being away from your own town stays with you for the rest of your life.”

— Social worker (male), age 25 from Azad Jammu and Kashmir

"There are also accounts of violent action by the student wings of political parties. Again, this is usually without ideological motive. A man says a fellow student was severely beaten by political activists for pushing into a queue. A woman says her student hostel was closed down after it was attacked by political party workers in the wake of a minor dispute between the hostel owner and one of their members. Another says that he was involved in an attempt by a group with religious links to take control of a university campus.

This culminated in the indiscriminate firing of automatic weapons in an incident that led to many injuries. In another story, conflict between two political groups blew up over the theft of a mobile phone, leading to a death and a number of injuries. Students and teachers without political connections were driven from the campus by the violence and the university was eventually closed until the conflict could be brought under control.”

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, October 19th, 2014