It is not just difficult but impossible to describe the atrocity that took place last week in Pakistan, where the Taliban went on a killing spree at a school in Peshawar.
The murderers, under orders from their bosses hiding in eastern Afghanistan, massacred students in a high school where the final death toll reached 141, of whom 132 were innocent children.
It staggers the imagination that demons such as those who attacked the Army Public School in Peshawar, and those who target schools in the deep South of our own country, try to associate their "cause" with the murder of students and teachers.
I don't know which "religion" these attackers claim to follow but it is not one that is practised in our civilisation. May the souls of the innocent rest in peace.
There is no positive side to last week's events, but the sacrifices made by these innocents have finally awakened the Pakistani government to the need to manage the country more wisely.
As they say, if you live in a snakepit, you have to be prepared to be bitten a few times, and Pakistan is no stranger to terrorism. Despite its status as a "partner" in the war on terror, Pakistan has long been a base for terrorist operatives, none bigger than Osama Bin Laden himself. Successive administrations in Islamabad have looked the other way while the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency aided and abetted shadowy groups for murky political aims, usually to do with destabilising arch-enemy India.
Today the chickens have come home to roost and in a very painful way.
Yet while Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has lifted a moratorium on the death penalty in terrorism cases, the contradictions persist.
Even while the country and the world were mourning the Peshawar victims, a Pakistani court last Thursday granted bail to Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Zaik-ur-Rahman Lakhvi. Both Indian and US intelligence have identified him as being the mastermind of the Nov 26, 2008 attack in Mumbai at the Taj Hotel that claimed the lives of close to 200 people.
India, which had managed to capture all those responsible on its soil, could not catch the mastermind as he was operating out of Karachi. Delhi provided the Islamabad government with all the evidence needed to support the prosecution of the man responsible for the Taj massacre.
Yet just 48 hours after another massacre on its own soil, Pakistan unaccountably allowed a terrorist to walk free for a mere $5,000 bail bond. Were the lives of those who died at the Taj so cheap?
Pakistani authorities know well enough, thanks to their experience with terror organisations, how difficult it is to track down anyone who manages to escape into its Northwestern Frontier area that borders Afghanistan. And what guarantee is there that Zaik-ur-Rahman Lakhvi has not already fled to that lawless region?
This is the same area where the orders for the Peshawar slaughter originated, which prompted the Pakistani military chief to fly immediately for a meeting in Kabul to find ways to pacify Pakistani citizens who are now losing faith in their system.
But in which world can there be two systems of operation: one for domestic issues and the other one for international affairs?
Pakistan, despite its efforts to curtail the rise of extremism and terrorism, has been a hotbed for various groups to operate, and a place where world-class terror suspects hid for years without the authorities noticing, or so they claim.
India and others have accused factions in Pakistan's military and intelligence services as being the backers, implicitly or explicitly depending on their strategic goals, of terror groups. These people supposedly continue to support "good" terror groups that fight on behalf of Pakistani intelligence with the "enemy" by going after soft targets. Authorities in Islamabad, meanwhile, vocally proclaim their determination to hunt down the "bad" terror groups bent on destabilising Pakistan itself.
Was the mastermind of the Taj Hotel massacre granted bail because he was one of the "good" terrorists?
If Pakistan is serious about curtailing the rise of extremists on its soil, it needs to act on its words and not just try to reassure the world and its own population about what it is undertaking.
Territorial disputes, most notably with India over Kashmir, can be handled in a more amicable way than through terror movements. Pakistan is heading down a very dangerous path because in the final analysis, no terror group believes it owes allegiance to any government, even one that appears to be sponsoring its savagery. The events in Peshawar are the proof of what a bad choice Pakistan has made.