POCATELLO — A world away in Peshawar, Pakistan, many are mourning the mass killing of 132 innocent school children after Taliban gunmen opened fire on a school Tuesday. As shock reverberates around the world, one Pocatello Pakistani-American is adding his voice to the cry for peace, and hoping others from our area will join him.

    Thursday evening Dr. Fahim Rahim will host a candlelight vigil for those who lost their lives, and those Pakistanis who must live on without their children.  

    The vigil is from 5 to 7 p.m. at 2850 Summit Drive. All are welcome.

    “It is so the community can get together and pray for those who lost their lives,” Rahim said.

    The atrocities in Peshawar strike especially close to home for the local doctor, humanitarian and director of the Idaho Kidney Center. Peshawar is his childhood home.

    “It’s where my brother and I are from,” Rahim said. “We still have a lot of family there.”

    The city of more than 3 million on Pakistan’s northern edge is similar in many ways to Pocatello, according to Rahim, with scenic mountains and hills arching over a valley where the Kabul River meanders through.

    As a child, Rahim would spend his summers running around the Peshawar Valley with his cousins while aunts, uncles and grandparents visited nearby.

    “It was our little heaven,” Rahim said.

    Rahim didn’t leave Pakistan until his early 20s.

    As the child of a Pakistani military member, Rahim attended a school very similar to the one that was targeted Tuesday. Rahim’s cousin, Ali Khan, who now lives in Pocatello, attended the same school where the massacre occurred from 2002 until 2004.

    “I remember those corridors that I walked in, that I played in, that I was disciplined in,” Khan said. “It’s something that puts you at a loss for words.”

Khan’s former teacher died in an attempt to shield her classroom of students from the hail of bullets. The Taliban poured gasoline on her and lit a match as she stood in their way.

    The siege began Tuesday morning after seven Pakistani Taliban entered the school through a back door. The children attending the school were between the ages of 10 and 14. Room by room they shot indiscriminately, tossed grenades and spread destruction. They were eventually met by Pakistani troops. All Taliban attackers were dead by the siege’s end at 4 p.m.

    “I hope you are feeling as restless as I am after reading the tragic news about the savage murder of 141 kids in my hometown Peshawar, Pakistan,” Rahim wrote in a statement. “Now there are two ways you can react. One, you can cry a tear and feel sorry for this loss and then the next day carry on with your structured life. Two, you can feel really angry and sad but call your neighbors, your local newspaper, legislators, mosques, churches, wards, temples, businesses, friends and family. Make everyone aware of these savage, tragic murders and bring everyone out in public together to openly denounce these crazy, savage, inhuman beasts and openly declare your war against them. … We refuse to accept you and your ideology and will not let these innocent lives die in vain.”

    Rahim was in contact with family members in Pakistan Wednesday. So far, all are safe and alive, although mourning.  

    “Even if it wasn’t my hometown, I still think I would feel the same way,” Rahim said.