Pakistanis Write Open Letter to CNN Following Peshawar Massacre

MOSCOW, December 19 (Sputnik) – Earlier this week militants from Tehreek-e-Taliban attacked a school in Peshawar, killing 141 people, including 132 children. The Taliban said the attack was revenge to the Pakistani government’s military operations in North Waziristan against Islamic militants.

The attack shocked the Pakistani public, leaving people puzzled and coming up with different versions of who might stand behind such a ruthless massacre. Fueling tensions in the public, a number of conspiracy theories have been spread via social media. People blame Western media, namely CNN for distorting certain aspects of the Peshawar massacre.

An open letter to CNN has been uploaded on Facebook by a Pakistani forum which has 2 million followers and the letter received over 22, 000 likes and was shared over 13,000 times. 

Dear CNN,

If you don't know what you're talking about (which is usually 99% of the time) then don't bother reporting it until you have the facts.

Firstly, those children who were murdered by these terrorists were not murdered for "going to school" — they were murdered because these were children of family members in the armed forces, the very same armed forces who happen to be fighting these terrorists in YOUR War on Terror.

Secondly, NO hospital in Pakistan indulges in gender discrimination. The reason why you see mainly injured boys in the hospitals is probably because all the causalities and injuries are boys! When the boys school gets attacked chances are the majority of the injuries and causalities will be males.

Thirdly, the "Pakistani Taliban" leadership all reside in AFGHANISTAN…the very same AFGHANISTAN your NATO is controlling. This might be a good time to go after them.

Western media has done a wonderful job in painting our country something that it is not, and in the times of such unthinkable barbaric attacks, you folks still can't get off your agenda in making us look like the boogeyman.

Please learn how to REPORT the news, not MAKE the news.

Following the attack the Pakistani government reacted by lifting the moratorium on death penalty. In province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa there are seven prisoners sentenced to death under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) and they are likely going to be hanged under the new law, reports Dawn News. The government also decided that security at the Pak-Afghan border would be tightened in order to restrain cross-border movement of militants.

At the General Headquarters on Friday, the leaders further decided that the operation being directed in North Waziristan and Khyber would be expanded and militant hideouts would be targeted in Tirah valley of Khyber as well as in other tribal areas.

Earlier this week, Taliban militants claimed that the assault was in retaliation for the killing of its fighters and their families in an ongoing military operation by NATO forces and the Pakistani army, in the North Waziristan tribal area, reports Express News.