Pakistani video game on Taliban school massacre removed after uproar

Islamabad, Pakistan: A Pakistani video game based on a Taliban school massacre of more than 150 people, mostly children, in the country’s northwest was removed on Monday after triggering a social media uproar, with critics blasting it as tasteless. The game, called “Pakistan Army Retribution”, was released by the Punjab IT board on Google Play, and invites the player to step into the shoes of a soldier shooting extremists in the hallways of a school. [caption id=“attachment_2589070” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Screen grab from Google play store Pakistan.[/caption] It is inspired by Pakistan’s deadliest ever insurgent attack that saw nine Taliban gunmen storm a school in Peshawar city, shooting students and teachers in cold blood and occupying the school for hours until they were killed by the army. The December 16, 2014 assault shocked Pakistan, already scarred by a decade of attacks, and emotional ceremonies marking the anniversary were held across the country last month. But after an article lampooning the game in Pakistan’s most widely read English language newspaper Dawn on Monday, social media users lambasted its makers for exploiting the tragedy. “Bizarre and distasteful,” user Shaheryar Mirza wrote. “Play the APS game on Android, kill the bad guys, empathy and good taste in one go,” wrote Fasi Zaka, referring to the Army Public School that was targeted in the grisly attack. The Punjab Information Technology Board, a government body aggressively promoting digital innovation in the central Pakistan province, offered a mea culpa on Twitter. “The APS game has been removed. It was in poor taste,” its head Dr Umar Saif wrote. “Thank you for highlighting this mistake. We have made the amends.” By Monday afternoon, the game was no longer available on Google Play. AFP