THERE are days when I consider giving up writing about Pakistan. Meaningful dialogue has surrendered to hostility, disagreement to tribal loyalties and reason to slogans. Powerful groups tighten their hold on institutions and resources while ordinary people argue over whose leader is superior. We fight one another, yet rarely ask whether our children are safe in schools, workers protected in factories or families secure beneath their own roofs. Then tragedy strikes and silence begins to feel like a moral failure. Writing becomes a duty.

On 15 October 2026, a private school roof collapsed in Peshawar’s Dir Colony. According to reports, 34 children and two female teachers died; more than 50 children were injured, some critically. Imagine parents preparing breakfast, packing schoolbags and sending children off with hopes for their future. By afternoon, some waited for bodies, others for news outside hospital wards. Classrooms meant to nurture dreams became places of unbearable loss. Some of the injured remain in hospital, while families expecting ordinary afternoons now face lives permanently divided into before and after. What kind of society cannot promise that a child will return safely from school?

This was no isolated warning. In Lahore’s Kahna neighbourhood, a tuition centre roof collapse killed 14 children.........

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