Social media activists strongly react to Paghman attack

KABUL (Pajhwok): They wanted to share their graduation and Eid greeting with families, but they went to graves instead of going to their mothers’ arms, wrote a Facebook activist about the victims of Paghman incident.

At least two Taliban bombers ambushed five police buses, destroying two of them in powerful blasts in Haidar Ali Khan area of Paghman district — 20 kilometres west of Kabul.

The police cadets were returning from a training centre in central Maidan Wardak province and were heading to the capital on leave. The first bomber targeted the bus carrying the trainee policemen and their instructors.

A second bomber attacked 20 minutes apart when police arrived at the scene on the Kabul-Kandahar highway to evacuate the casualties. The Taliban claimed 150 police had been killed and dozens more wounded.

On Thursday evening, the Ministry of Interior put the toll at 30 dead and 58 wounded, but revised the toll on Friday as 33 dead and 79 injured. Two of the wounded are civilians and the rest trainee police.

“They were excited while heading homes, they might be celebrating their graduation in their minds and thought they would celebrate it with their mothers, fathers who waiting for their arrival.”

“Their sisters and brothers were also counting the minutes of their arrival, but it did not happen, the graduated students just brought with them home martyr certificates and went to grave instead of celebrating Eid,” Fayaz wrote on Facebook page.

A large number of other Afghan social media activists shared similar greif and criticised the government for its failure to prevent such incidents.

“Officials in other countries resign even for a small incident, announce national mourning and put flags half-mast, but here more than a hundred people were killed and wounded last Thursday, but the incident was ignored like nothing had happened, our leaders are busy right now sharing government positions,” another Facebook user, Javed Hamim Kakar, said.

Abdul Jamil Mullahkhil, a social media activist, lashed out at the parliament for not summoning the interior minister over the tragic incident, calling lawmakers bribe-fed.

Ahmad Javid, who shared pictures of the victims and the interior minister visiting the injured at hospital, said “visiting the injured is useless when there is no management in place.”

Another social media activist, Iftikhar Ahmad Hamdard, said eyewitnesses believed the Paghman incident was a conspiracy because the explosives had already been planted on the police vehicles.

“We don’t know the motive behind transferring such a large number of police cadets at once. Why such incidents happen repeatedly,” he asked.

mds/ma

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