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Pakistan
A PAKISTANI VIDEO game based on a Taliban school massacre of more than 150 people, mostly children, in the country’s northwest has been removed after triggering a social media uproar, with critics blasting it as tasteless.
The game, called Pakistan Army Retribution, was released by the Punjab IT board on Google Play, and invites the player to step into the shoes of a soldier shooting extremists in the hallways of a school.
It is inspired by Pakistan’s deadliest ever insurgent attack that saw nine Taliban gunmen storm a school in Peshawar city, shooting students and teachers in cold blood and occupying the school for hours until they were killed by the army.
The December 2014 assault shocked Pakistan, already scarred by a decade of attacks, and emotional ceremonies marking the anniversary were held across the country last month.
But after an article lampooning the game in Pakistan’s most widely read English language newspaper Dawn on Monday, social media users lambasted its makers for exploiting the tragedy.
“Distasteful”
“Bizarre and distasteful,” user Shaheryar Mirza wrote.
“Play the APS game on Android, kill the bad guys, empathy and good taste in one go,” wrote Fasi Zaka, referring to the Army Public School that was targeted in the grisly attack.
The Punjab Information Technology Board, a government body aggressively promoting digital innovation in the central Pakistan province, offered a mea culpa on Twitter.
“The APS game has been removed. It was in poor taste,” its head Dr Umar Saif wrote.
“Thank you for highlighting this mistake. We have made the amends.”
By this afternoon, the game was no longer available on Google Play.
© – AFP 2016, originally published 6.13pm
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How in hell was those conditions allowed to continue?
Surely some of the staff should have spoken up? A terrible situation.
You don’t try to treat animals like that if you have any form of decency!
It’s absolutely disgraceful how the most vulnerable in our society are treated. shocking
I totally agree with both of you, The most vulnerable in society the young and elderly must be cherished and protected especially from a cowboy like the owner of this nursing home.
Unfortunately, it is the residents who will end up being most effected, this was their home and now they will be moved elsewhere, very traumatic for anyone but especially the elderly. I hope they throw the book at the owner.
This residential home isn’t far from me, and it faces directly out to sea so imagine the wind chill alone especially during the cold snap last year. It is sickening to think that business men have been allowed to operate and profit for years from these types of institutions. My heart goes out to the residents and their families. I’m sure creevala and ross trevor are only the tip of the iceberg in these investigations.
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