A grand welcome planned for Pakistan's hockey team which won a silver medal in Champions Trophy was today called off after a brazen Taliban attack on a military-run school that killed at least 160 people, mostly children.
The Pakistan Hockey Federation said the ceremony has been cancelled following the attack on the Army Public School on Warsak Road in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Peshawar city.
The ceremony was planned to welcome the players who took Pakistan to the final of the just-concluded tournament in India after a gap of 16 years.
The players were to be driven in a motorcade to Lahore after their return home via the Wagah Border.
The federation said the ceremony would be held at a suitable time.
The team lost to Germany in the final. Their journey to the final, however, was marred in controversy because of obscene behaviour of some Pakistani players after their win over India in the semi-final.
In one of the most gruesome attacks on children anywhere in the world, at least six Taliban militants stormed the school and went classroom-to-classroom shooting indiscriminately.
At least 160 people, most of them children, were killed in the attack, which was a reaction to Pakistan military's campaign against the militants.
