By Haris Ahmed

On a bright Thursday morning in Peshawar’s Dir Colony, young boys and girls walked to school, hoping for a great future.

Just like any other day, Sanan Asad’s mother gave her 11-year-old son a loving kiss on his forehead before sending him off to class on that terrible day. She watched him walk away, fully expecting to see him come home a few hours later carrying his bag, books, and that happy smile that always made the family house feel bright. But Sanan never returned. At about 8:45 a.m., a three-story building that held the Alkhair School in Dir Colony, Peshawar, completely fell down, turning a normal school morning into a horrific nightmare for dozens of families. The disaster took the lives of 34 school children aged 5 to 13 years old and one female teacher, leaving behind broken parents, completely silent houses, and a constant question that won’t go away: could these young lives have been saved?

Sanan was one of five cousins from the same big family who passed away in the terrible school collapse. The others were seven-year-old Mubasshir Naeem, seven-year-old Amir Mangal, seven-year-old Haleema Haleem, and eight-year-old Romaisa Ismail. Their uncle, Tauseef Ahmad, still cannot believe what happened to these young children. He explained that he got a phone call about the accident that morning and ran straight to the school. As he got closer to the fallen building, he could hear the screams and cries of children coming from under the heavy broken bricks and dust. Then, a terrible moment happened that he says will stay with him forever. He suddenly saw the rescue teams pulling Sanan’s lifeless body out of the broken building pieces, speaking very slowly because of his deep sadness. For Sanan’s mother, the heartbreak is even worse. One morning, she heard a vehicle siren outside and instantly ran toward her son’s bedroom to wake him up for school. But there was no child there to wake up anymore. Only his dirty uniform, books, and pictures were left, forcing her to close the door with tears in her eyes. The neighborhood that used to be full of kids playing has also become unusually quiet.

This tragedy has now caught the attention of people far outside this one sad neighborhood, bringing up a massive question about how safe school buildings are all across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. A first look into the fallen school showed that the building was very old and built with poor materials, which were the main reasons it fell. This early report was given by the SSP Operations to the Capital City Police Officer in Peshawar, causing a lot of worry about building safety, check-up systems, and making sure educational institutions follow proper safety codes. Professor Dr. Ibrahim Khan, who used to be the Director of Education, shared that these children were like beautiful little flowers who never got a chance to grow up. “They had big dreams in their eyes. Their parents sent them to class hoping that learning would give them a better life. Sadly, they went to school to get an education, not to die,” he said. He asked if these repeated disasters should keep being ignored as simple accidents. “If close to 300 children have died in these kinds of events over the last three years, then these are not just accidents,” he noted. “They show huge failures in our school check-up systems, how education is run, and who is held responsible.”

His questions point directly to the main issue in a country where every area has government offices and workers who are supposed to look after school buildings. Most public funds are spent on worker salaries, running offices, and monitoring, rather than actually checking if school buildings are safe. “The big question is whether their only job is to collect their paychecks, or if checking school walls, keeping children safe, and using the law are also duties they must perform,” he stated. If regular check-ups, safety steps, and real monitoring systems are active, he asked, why do these disasters keep happening? He added that if investigations prove that workers were lazy, corrupt, or misused their power, who is going to be punished? Right after this Peshawar school disaster that broke the hearts of every Pakistani, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Elementary and Secondary Education Department ordered fast actions to check the strength of school structures. The department told workers to start immediately with schools that were reported as highly dangerous in news stories, public complaints, or other trusted sources.

The education directorate, district education chiefs, and field workers have been told to check every complaint, picture, video, and report about dangerous school structures that come through department channels, internet sites, regular news, or other true sources. The orders are completely clear: if a school building is found to be dangerous, all teaching must stop right away. Students must be moved to nearby schools or other safe rooms, and classes can only start again after the building is fixed and a technical team signs a safety paper. The department also ordered that fixes must be done fast by having the planning team work closely with technical groups and the public works department. Wherever big structural flaws are found, expert checks and fixes must happen. All districts have been told to send in complete reports by midday on October 21, listing all checks, dangerous buildings found, closed classes, student moving plans, and fixing steps. Education Adviser Dr. Syed Amir Abdullah also mentioned that a total check of all school buildings across the province started right after this tragic event. For private schools, he noted that district bosses were given three days to hand in reports on their buildings. For public schools, structures will be checked, and any that fail safety tests will be fixed, cleared out, or closed down completely. He added that students will be moved to nearby schools if needed so their learning does not stop.

The KP government has also announced money help for the grieving families. Peshawar Deputy Commissioner Afaq Wazir gave out compensation checks worth Rs21 million to the families of the dead children, following orders from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi. Families who had gone back to their home villages to bury their loved ones will get their money checks as soon as they return, workers said. The DC noted that the owner of the school has been caught by police and an official criminal case (FIR) has been started. But for families like Sanan’s, no amount of money can equal the life of a child or heal the pain of a parent. No bank check can bring back a son who wanted to wear a police uniform, and no investigation can bring back the laughter that left the family home. Also, no government note can answer a mother’s question when she stares into her child’s empty room. The tragedy demands real accountability to ensure no mother ever sends her child to school with a kiss, only to receive a lifeless body in return.