Veteran Bollywood actor Dilip Kumar has expressed his thoughts and condemned the barbaric terrorist attack on Army Public School in Peshawar that killed over 140 people, most of them children.
Speaking to IANS, Kumar, who was born in Peshawar, said: "I was born in the charming city of Peshawar in undivided India and I still have many special memories of the place. What the Taliban terrorists of Pakistan did to the school children in Peshawar is unforgivable and sinful.
“The massacre has wounded me beyond words. My heart longs to reach out to the parents who lost their sons and daughters in the worst crime any country has witnessed in recent years.”
The 92-year-old further said: “I pray to the Almighty to give strength to the grieving parents to live through the trauma and horror and bear the loss. The time has come to crush and destroy such evil forces.”
The dastardly attack on Army Public School in Peshawar has left many Bollywood greats in a state of shock. In his blog, Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan said that instead of sympathising, the world should pray for the survivors and victims.
The veteran actor posted: "I can reconcile with my mind… I can reconcile with my body… I can reconcile with idiocy… I can reconcile with victory and defeat… but how does one reconcile with the tragedy and the horror of the children in Peshawar, Pakistan…
“Life goes on as does the wheel of fortune… moving endlessly on its axis of all what life and the heavens purported to bless us with… but when you look back, it is time for you to look forward… the horror does not need any accreditation… it does not need attention or sympathy… right now it needs only prayer and thoughts with those little ones.”
Feeling the pain and agony, the 72-year-old wrote: “Going about our daily work is ridden with the thoughts of those that perished… those that shall never see their homes again… those who went to educate themselves, to learn, to understand, to live… and they all ended up a heap of… it is difficult even to talk about it…”
He further wrote: "It is difficult to even begin to describe what our feelings should be, for all that we can possibly perceive is that a prayer and comfort is all that we should be giving to those that survived.”
Devastated by the news of the recent attack on Army Public School in Peshawar, Bollywood icon Anupam Kher has written an open letter to terrorists involved in the attack, reported Hindustan Times as it ran a copy of the letter.
Following are the words the renowned icon wrote:
Every time you commit a mindless act of terrorism, I die a little. Truth be told, I have been dying quite often of late; little by little.
I have died when bombs go off in civilian areas, when bystanders are held hostage, when airlines are hijacked, when defenceless people are killed and when the unarmed are sold as slaves.
But today, when you butchered over 130 children in cold blood in a school in Peshawar, I fear there is nothing left in me. I don’t know what your objective was, but you have certainly reduced me to a dead man walking.
What tenet of religiosity can you quote to justify such slaughtering of children? What twisted perception of which faith can you claim to adhere to? Does it require bravery to shoot barefaced children, innocents who do not understand the concept of conflict, much less the evil face of terrorism?
Killing children cannot be an act of faith in any religion. According to early reports, you are the same monsters who tried to kill Malala Yousufzai on October 9, 2012.
You did not kill her; her bravery won her the Noble Prize earlier this month.
Words cannot adequately despise the monstrosity which you have committed. True, there have been greater pogroms in history such as Lidice, Dachau, the purges of Stalin, the Cultural Revolution of Mao, the killing fields of Cambodia. But these were political movements or results of conflict.
What you have done today is something not reflected in history; the slaughter of innocents.
I cannot ascribe a category to which you could possibly belong. Even animals kill for a reason; out of fear or hunger. But you let loose bullets out of senselessness. Truly, you are beyond evil.
Pictures of war and conflict often move me. Today it was different. I saw a picture of a father who had tied the shoelace of his son before he sent him to the ill-fated school.
'I have the shoe, but I have no son…’ he lamented.
I was not moved. I broke down.
Your dastardly act today will have united parents everywhere and earned you their curses. Time will prove that their curses will not have been in vain.
Jub bachpan tumhari goud mein aaney se katrane lage
Jub maa ki kokh se jhankti zindagi bahar aaney se ghabrane lage
Samjho kuch ghalat hai
Jub talwarein phoolon par zor aazmane lagein
Jub masoom ankhon mein khauf nazar aane lage
Samjho kuch ghalat hai
Jub oos ki boondon ko hatheliyon pe nahin hathiyaron ki nok par theherna ho
Jub nanhe nanhe talwon ko aag se guzarna ho
Samjho kuch ghalat hai
Jub kilkariyan sahem jayein
Jub totli boliyan khamosh ho jayein
Samjho kuch ghalat hai
Khuch nahin bahut kuch ghalat hai
Kyonki zor se barish honi chahiye thi
Poori duniya mein
Har jagah tapakne chahiye the aansoo
Rona chaiye tha upar wale ko
Aasman se
Phoot phoot kar
Sharm se jhukni chaiye thein insaani sabhyata ki gardanein
Shok nahin soch ka waqt hai
Matam nahin sawalon ka waqt hai
Agar iske baad bhi sar utha kar khada ho sakta hai insaan
Toh samjho kuch ghalat hai.