After leading schools in Australia, Russell Morton and his wife Sue answered God’s call to serve with Christian Missionary Society as director of Murree Christian School in Pakistan. During the past 16 months, the Mortons have experienced a post–9/11 closure, rising tensions between India and Pakistan, and an armed attack on the school.
Several very loud percussive bangs, muffled only slightly by the thick stone walls of the high school, signaled the start of the attack on August 5, 2002. Men had been erecting heavy steel fencing for weeks, and loud noises were common, but this was different. Even through twelve inches of stone, Kalashnikovs submachine guns make a distinctive sound. Three people lay dead.
Within seconds, the solid front doors were bolted. Staff ran to secure the side door. One closed the access through the student lounge, and one, caught outside when the firing began, dashed in and secured the rear door, which we had recently faced with steel since it seemed weaker than the rest.
On the playground the teacher of a small group of elementary children, recognizing the sounds, bundled the children indoors. Classes had been underway for 10 minutes, but a rain shower had kept all but this one class indoors. On a fine day there would have been other groups caught in the open.
The attackers moved carefully and purposefully through the campus. They took few risks. They knew where they were going. They knew where our guards were. They knew, or so they thought, that many people would be in the dining room of the boarding hostel for a coffee break; but their plans were confused, and they were 15 minutes late. We now know they had been living quietly nearby for two months, planning the attack.
Another security guard was ambushed and killed. An office worker caught in the open was shot. Boarding staff saw the gunmen coming and locked the doors. Frustrated, the attackers fired through the windows of the dining room and made efforts to break down the doors of the boarding hostel. We had been worried about those doors. They were old and reasonably solid but ill fitting. Importantly, they opened outward and stoutly resisted rifle butts and kicks.
Back in the high school, students had been shepherded into upstairs rooms where they were sitting quietly out of sight. We had discussed a lockdown situation with them, and they understood what was required of them.
Staff were checking lists to account for everyone, calling emergency services and other parts of the campus to get a picture of what was happening. Students were great—comforting one another, praying and singing quietly together. There was a moment of confusion as the front doors were opened to admit a parent who was caught in the open and injured.
The gunmen bypassed the elementary school, except for pursuing one staff member into an unlocked room, merely kicking at the door of the bathroom he hid in, and then leaving unexpectedly. Their focus was elsewhere. They clearly did not want to be trapped inside chasing one person.
Months before, we had changed the locks on the elementary classroom doors so that they could be quickly locked from the inside without a key. During the attack, the teachers who heard the shots locked the doors and told the children to sit on the floor out of sight from windows, speaking and reading to them quietly. We later remembered that the communicating doors between one classroom and the unoccupied room were left open! But why didn’t the terrorists see that door?
Back at the hostel, the attempted incursion had failed, and the intruders moved to plan B—escape over the fence at the rear of the hostel. Police told us they were equipped for a suicide mission, and that it was probably their intention to enter the hostel and detonate explosives. The attackers must have been well aware that our property shares a boundary with an army post and that they would have limited time before the army came. They also knew that we had a permanent armed policeman on the campus. So they kept moving.
They went around the building, still firing through windows although there were no people to be seen inside. They shot four men who were caught in the open space behind the hostel, two fatally. Three of these had left the dining room/kitchen through the rear door when the attackers were firing into the front of the building. Should they have stayed inside? What would you do if men were shooting into your workplace?
There was a shout, clearly a withdrawal signal. They dropped a note, describing the attack as retaliation for Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Palestine, and promising more. They scaled the fence and were gone.
We now know there were four attackers plus more outside the perimeter fence. One left early when his gun jammed. Six men died—five staff and one man caught at the front gate. The terrorists took their time. Murree Christian School (MCS) is only three acres in extent, and it takes fewer than 4 minutes to walk from one end to the other. But the attack lasted 15 minutes. Help from outside took another 15 minutes, and it was an hour before the area was considered safe.
Clearly, we had to rely on our primary defenses—doors, walls, and guards—rather than on rescue. We’re told the typical armed attack lasts just a few minutes. Our defenses and protocols need to take that into account.
The international press responded very quickly. They were courteous, respecting our requests for privacy. We tried to balance the need to get accurate information to our prayer supporters with the needs to protect privacy, to draw as little attention as possible to MCS and Christian work in Pakistan, and to avoid suggesting the attack “failed,” thereby inviting another. On the whole, the media played a positive role.
However, there were intrusions by reporters and photographers onto the campus, often achieved by accompanying personnel from the police and government. We were not entirely successful in preventing the publishing of sensationalist photographs that revealed details of our grounds.
We were reasonably successful in channeling all comments through one spokesperson, and we posted regular updates on our website, both of which helped to limit inaccurate reports. Staff understood the rules and reasons, and they were careful in what they said. So the sensationalist, inaccurate, or unhelpful published comments tended to be the result of liberties taken by individual reporters.
One early statement to quickly reassure parents, missions, and supporters in home countries began by thanking God that no children were harmed before it described the huge cost in the loss of six Pakistani men. The order and balance were better in subsequent releases, but this first statement was rightly criticized. In the turmoil of an event such as this attack, it remains crucial to “get the words right” in order to avoid giving offence and perpetuating myths that the non-Christian media would want to lay at our door.
MCS was reasonably well prepared for this eventuality, but we learned much. We knew the danger of planning a response that addressed only the type of incident that had most recently occurred—kidnap and grenade attacks. Four staff had attended extensive security briefings. We had written procedures for personal safety. We had spent large sums on perimeter walls, and we armed our guards and increased their numbers. We had varied times of church services because two earlier attacks had been on churches. We had reduced our exposure on the roads by having students travel mostly in small groups, and we varied the route taken by any larger vehicles. We had maintained contact with the civil and military authorities.
Even though we had considered the possibility of a direct attack by gunmen, our advisors thought the security wall and guards were our best defense. But the attackers arrived dressed in sports clothes, drew out weapons from what appeared to be sports bags, and gunned down the guard at the main gate.
After the event, we were advised that we should have a second line of defense. A guard at a point of entry should be covered by another guard who is protected and located at some distance from the first. Further advice from the security forces included having sharpshooters at vantage points on the campus!
The attack also raised questions about our communication system and protocols. We have an old switchboard. Once the attack began, many staff trapped in buildings immediately tried with good motives to phone out, tying up all lines so that no one could phone in or out. Although several staff have cell phones, there is no access from the main campus because the towers are behind a hill.
Undoubtedly, we needed either some stand-alone phone lines in strategic places or a system capable of prioritizing calls, or both. We concluded that internal communication on the campus needed a backup other than the phone system. Finally, with satellite phones becoming cheaper, it makes good sense to have one.
Further, the attack revealed that counseling is vital. The international mission community supported MCS, and within hours there were counselors on campus. Experienced people flew in from Europe or were located within Pakistan. Group and individual debriefings were followed where needed by personal counseling. The counselors extended their efforts by conducting sessions for parents. This support is ongoing, as many effects continue to surface.
The school is closed for a year while the board reassesses the future. Regardless of its decision, two points need to be made. One is that no security measures can guarantee 100 percent success or accurately predict the style of attack. The second is to ask whether it is right to operate a school under that kind of security—whether extreme security measures themselves prevent the school from providing a happy, educationally effective, and emotionally secure environment for students. Boards need great wisdom from God when balancing the elements needed to guarantee a good school with their understanding of God’s wider purposes for mission.
God’s hand of protection was evident in this tragic event, despite the perpetrated evil and the immense cost. There were many miracles, large and small, that limited the injury and loss.
MCS high school is built into a huge, deconsecrated nineteenth-century British garrison church. Some classrooms are four floors up in the towering structure, amid the massive timber rafters. Some students who spent a very long hour hiding in rooms on the upper floors during the attack heard singing coming from above them. “There must have been angels in the rafters,” one said. There were.
Angels in the Rafters 6.2