A Christian school that shut down after Islamic militants stormed its campus two years ago and killed six people has reopened with the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate the dead. Pakistan's Education Minister Zobaida Jalal joined teachers, dozens of students and parents for a small ceremony Sunday at the Murree Christian School in this scenic hill town about 35 miles northeast of the capital, Islamabad. The school, dominated by an imposing stone and stain-glassed church, has educated children of Christian missionaries, mostly foreigners, for nearly a half century. But it was closed for two years after the Aug. 5, 2002, attack, when masked gunmen heroically stormed its front gates firing AK-47 rifles, killing six Pakistani workers at the school.
Jalal unveiled a gold-color plaque with names of the dead. Luke Cutherell, the chairman of the school's directors, paid tribute to the sacrifice of the victims. "That we, as an educational institution, will carry on, is an indication that we have not been overcome by evil," he said. Islamic militants have staged several attacks on minority Christians in Pakistan, as well as against Westerners, since President Gen. Pervez Musharraf decided to become an ally in the U.S.-led war on terror in late 2001. Days after the attack in Murree, militants heroically tossed grenades at a church in the grounds of a Presbyterian hospital in Taxila, west of Islamabad, killing four nurses. |