PESHAWAR: For the 40-year-old Andaleeb Aftab, her visit to her son’s school would have been more traumatic had she not gone there two days prior to its reopening.

Less than a month ago, she lost her elder son in a militant attack while she narrowly survived by locking herself, along with two other staff members, in a washroom in the administration block.

Barely three minutes before a hit squad of suicide bombers stormed the Army Public School, her son Huzaifa Aftab had come to her for pocket money. “I knew he was in the auditorium,” Andaleeb recalled. She only hoped he would be alive.

On March 19, Huzaifa would have turned sixteen. He was among almost an entire class of the senior section killed that tragic day. His brother, a class-V student in the same school, had gone to play table tennis in the junior section.

“I knew it would be difficult for me to fight off tears. I am a teacher and teachers are supposed to be a role model.” So she decided to visit her school two days prior to its reopening on Monday to mourn the death of her eldest son and those of her colleagues and cry her heart out.

The atmosphere at the Army Public School was heavy and sombre. The memory of the Dec 16 massacre of students and staff members was as fresh as, perhaps, the newly painted administration block, the scene of last month’s carnage that saw four suicide bombers blowing themselves up one after the other.

The military authorities had done well to renovate the main administration block and clean up the classrooms. The auditorium, the scene of the carnage, has been draped in green fabric. The army is mulling over several proposals to put the auditorium to some other use.

Security at the school is more robust now. Snipers have taken up position on vantage points. But there was more-than-usual security there on Monday. Parents were sent text messages two days ago to come with their children but without school bags.

There was no formal ceremony and no speeches, not even by Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif and his wife, who had arrived early to meet students and parents on the reopening day.

“It was a surprise to see him in the school’s lawn,” said Ibrahim Khan, who had gone to attend the ceremony with his 16-year-old son. “He shook hands with us and spoke to us. It was reassuring.”

Army’s spokesperson Maj Gen Asim Bajwa said the army chief stood proudly with students and parents to sing the national anthem. “Everyone (is) in high spirit. This nation unbeatable,” he said in his tweet.

ABSENCE OF POLITICIANS: The ceremony was off-limits for the media and, perhaps, for the political leadership as well.

Imran Khan, whose Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf rules Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said he wanted to come for the reopening ceremony but was asked to postpone the trip.

“Planned to be with our brave children who returned to APS today along with Reham & CM KP, but we were advised to postpone visit,” Mr Khan said in his tweet. “COAS was going today for what we were told was a ‘soft’ opening of the APS,” he explained.

Three students, their hands wrapped in bandages and plaster, rose from their seat, others standing in rows behind them, as the national anthem was sung. “It was exhilarating,” Ibrahim said.

But some mothers who have lost their sons in the seven-hour shooting and bombing spree, sobbed as students sang Jis tarha phool se hoti hai chaman ki zeenat (As the garden through flowers attains its elegance) from Allama Iqbal’s famous poem, Lab pe aati hai dua ban ke tamanna meri.

“It was moving. I broke down,” a parent said.

It was probably as traumatic an experience for the students as well, many of whom had mixed feelings of grief and happiness, grieving the loss of their friends and classmates and seeing others alive. “Thank God, you are alive,” was the most overheard remark.

But the tragedy has not shaken their faith. “I am not going to leave this school,” Rizwan Khan said. Like many others, he too, has lost some friends, but the attack, he said, would not scare him away from this school. “I will stay here.”

Parents, however, need something more than just verbal reassurance. A parents’ body said they not only wanted military awards for their brave sons and a monument built in their memory, but they also want to be told about the findings of the inquiry report for any security lapse.

“I would like to know about the findings of the inquiry committee,” Abdul Wahid Qadri, who lost his grandson in the tragedy, said.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2015

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