Pakistan: 2 years on, student succumbs to wounds suffered in APS attack

Peshawar: A 18-year-old Pakistani student has succumbed to his wounds received in the deadly 2014 militant attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, three days before the country marks the second anniversary of the massacre that claimed over 150 lives.

Irshad Hussain was being treated at a hospital in Rawalpindi for the bullet wounds he received in the attack. He had been shot in neck and back, leading to critical injuries, The Nation reported.

Hussain was suffering from mental trauma caused by the horrific attack, according to family.

On December 16, 2014, over 150 people, nearly all of them school children, were massacred when heavily armed Taliban suicide bombers stormed a Pakistan army-run school here, firing indiscriminately, leaving another 130 injured.

The deadly attack shocked the entire nation, prompting the government to launch a national action plan (NAP) to root out the scourge of terrorism and extremism once and for all.

The country also decided to put an end to capital punishment, sending scores of convicts to gallows.

The government and opposition parties agreed to set up military courts for trial of hardcore terrorists to expedite campaign against foreign and local militants.

Six months before the APS attack, Pakistan had launched 'Operation Zarb-e-Azb' in North Waziristan, killing hundreds of militants in aerial strikes and a major ground offensive.

The North Waziristan operation was launched after militants targeted Karachi's Jinnah International Airport in a speculator attack that saw over two dozen people killed in June 2014.