Islamabad---When Taliban militants stormed a school in Pakistan's northwest last December, killing 150 people, mainly children, in the country's deadliest terror attack, comic book creators Mustafa Hasnain and Gauhar Aftab decided it was time to act.
The pair had already been working on a series to raise awareness about the corruption that plagues the economically-underperforming Muslim giant of 200 million people.
But they quickly decided to shift their focus to violent extremism -- and felt holding candle-light vigils was not the best way to effect change.
Hasnain, a British-educated computer graphics specialist, founded his own company Creative Frontiers in 2013, today employing 20 people, including young male and female artists, programmers and writers, in a hip Silicon Valley-style office in the city of Lahore.
He explained: "It was a huge watershed moment for us. I got together with Gauhar and I said 'We really have to do something about this'.
"We used to stand over there (at vigils) with a candle... but we wanted to do something more."
The result was "Paasban" -- or "Guardian" -- a three-part series featuring a group of close friends at college who begin to worry when one of them drops out to join a religious student group that is ostensibly working for charitable causes. Some in the group however, suspect it may have darker aims.
Fifteen thousand of the books are set to be distributed for free from June 1 at schools in the cities of Lahore, Multan and Lodhran while some copies will be made available in book stores. The comic will also be distributed on a tailor-made app the group have developed for Apple and Android smartphones.
- Personal journey -
For English-language script writer Aftab, the pathway from disillusionment to signing up to carry a gun and fight the so-called enemies of Islam was not just something he had read about in the news -- it was a choice he had almost made as a child.
A product of Aitchison College in Lahore, Pakistan's elite equivalent to Britain's Eton, Aftab came under the influence of a charismatic teacher who convinced him at the age of 13 to leave behind his school and family to fight jihad (holy war) against the Indian army in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.
Eventually pulled back by a last-minute family intervention, he came to identify the methods that radicals use to attract young people to violent jihad.
AFP
