'I am safe and not hit', boy told his mother after he writhed in pain with a bullet in his chest

Peshawar: “I told mama on the phone that I am safe and not hit, but I had received a bullet right in the chest.”

This is Osama, a class 8 student, who were held hostage inside Army Public School in Peshawar by Taliban among several others.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Osama said that his parents lived on Warsak Road, which was cordoned off by the Army for all sorts of traffic, and hence they could not reach him.

Osama spoke to his parents on the phone while avoiding detection from the militants, when he pacified his mother saying that he was fine, even as he was writhing in pain with the bullet in his chest.

Another student, Jalal Ahmed (15) could hardly speak, choking with tears. At one of the hospitals, he told Reuters, “I am a biochemistry student and I was attending a lecture in our main hall. There are five doors in the hall. After some time we heard someone kicking the back doors. There were gunshots but our teacher told us to be quiet and calmed us down. Then the men came with big guns.”

A 9-year-old child who refused to be named with the fear of being identified told The Express Tribune that teachers shepherded his class out through a back door as soon as the shooting began.

“The teacher asked us to recite from the Quran quietly,” he said. “When we came out from the back door there was a crowd of parents who were crying. When I saw my father he was also crying.”