I saw gunman shooting my teacher: Teenager recounts horror of Peshawar attack

Peshawar: Ladyluck favoured a 14-year-old student who survived miraculously after being hit on the forehead by a bullet fired from point blank range by a Taliban militant in the school massacre here that killed 148 people, mostly children. “I was hiding beneath a chair in auditorium of Army Public School when militants entered and opened indiscriminate fire at the participants of the first aid training,” Syed Bakir Naqvi, a 9th class student, told PTI. [caption id=“attachment_1855883” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. AFP[/caption] Recalling the horrific attack in a choked voice due to shock and fear, Bakir said he was in the middle of the auditorium and militants first targeted people standing on stage and then those sitting in the initial rows of the hall. “I saw an attacker piercing three bullets in the back of my teacher who had bent down beneath the chair in a bid to hide herself from the butchers,” he recalled. After hitting people of the first row, mostly teachers, they started targeting students running here and there to save their lives. Bakir and his elder brother, Syed Sitwat Ali Shah who studies in 12th class of Army Public School and College remained safe, but their mother Syeda Farhat Bibi Jafery became victim of the attackers. Ill-fated Farhat was the teacher who taught Islamiyat, Arabic and Urdu to college students. Bakir says as the militant reached in the row of chairs where he was hiding, the attacker spotted a student sitting next to him and hit him in the head and killing the child. “I was in a state of extreme fear and expecting that next target will be me, but the militant passed to the next row in chase of another student,” Bakir said. However, after a minute the attacker returned and spotted me. This was a very critical time for me, the militant moved towards me and pointed his gun towards me, he said. As the militant pushed the trigger to hit Bakir while pointing towards his head, the teenage boy swiftly jerked his head back and the bullet missed the target, passing away while rubbing his forehead. “I felt a mild pain and blood started oozing out of my head, the attacker observed that I have been hit in the head and he moved away,” Bakir said. Bakir was conscious, but he pretended himself as dead unless the military entered the hall and rushed him to hospital where he received few stitches on his head. Both the brothers are happy to have survived the barbaric attack, but are in a state of extreme shock and grief over the loss of their mother. “We wish lady luck would also have favoured our much loving mother and saved her as we are safe from the massacre ,” the duo said. PTI