Sir: The recent incident in Peshawar where scores of teenage school children, along with school staff, were brutally massacred by a group of terrorists turned every eye in the country wet. The seeds of hatred that were sowed more than three decades ago have now grown into a full-fledged tree whose branches have spread all over the country. We are yet to unanimously decide whose war are we fighting. Gone are the leaders who initially pampered militancy in the veil of religion at the encouragement and pushing of western powers in the early 1980s. However, their remnants in the form of various political and religious leaders (none of whom have lost any of their near and dear ones in this so-called holy war) still, in my opinion, think that they are on the right path. The entire nation, including politicians and the media, should now openly criticise these terrorists without the fear of any backlash. It was deplorable to recently learn that a coalition partner of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has rallied to remove text from school books in which the present dismal situation has been described due to the involvement of a few religious parties in the Afghan war in the 1980s. It is time we set our priorities straight and uproot this menace forever. M ASIF Karachi