Peshawar attack: India expresses solidarity with Pak, observes 2-min silence in schools, Parliament

New Delhi, Dec 17: Two minutes of silence was observed in schools across India to express solidarity with the horrible bloodbath in an army school in Peshawar in Pakistan that saw 132 children killed.

Nine staff members were also gunned down by the Taliban assassins who entered the school and carried out the perhaps the bloodiest massacre in Pakistan's history.

As a mark of solidarity with Pakistan, Modi on Tuesday appealed to all schools in India to observe 2 minutes of silence tomorrow for the "senseless act of unspeakable brutality" in Peshawar.

The Lok Sabha also observed a brief silence in memory on Wednesday for those who lost their lives in a Taliban attack on a school in Pakistan's Peshawar city Tuesday.

As soon as the house assembled for the day, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan asked the members to observe silence and also condemned the attack.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also present in the house.

PM Modi on Tuesday spoke with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif to offer deep condolences and all assistance in the hour of grief.

Modi told Sharif that "this terrible tragedy has shaken the conscience of the world" and "that this moment of shared pain and mourning is also a call for our two countries and all those who believe in humanity to join hands to decisively and comprehensively defeat terrorism so that the children in Pakistan, India and elsewhere do not have to face a future darkened by the lengthening shadow of terrorism."

The Pakistani Taliban killed 148 people, 132 of them children, in a terror attack Tuesday by heavily armed gunmen and suicide bombers on an army-run school in Peshawar city.

(With inputs from agencies)

OneIndia News