Aitzaz Hasan: The Boy Who Stopped a Suicide Bomber

Aitzaz Hasan, a Pakistani boy of just 15, had never been a known figure in his country. That changed on 6 January 2014. Hasan and his friends were outside their school in Ibrahimzai, in north-west Pakistan, when they spotted a suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives, intent on detonating it among the roughly 2,000 children inside the school.

The Heroism of Aitzaz Hasan

Following the basic instinct of human survival, the teenagers ran. All except Aitzaz Hasan. He spoke his final words (“I am going to stop him. He is going to the school to kill my friends”) and, without hesitating, the young hero went to meet the bomber, starting a hand-to-hand struggle that set off the bomb and killed them both.

Aitzaz Hasan transcended. The virtue of courage shown by the 15-year-old overcame the act of extreme cowardice and religious fanaticism the terrorist was about to carry out. Hasan became a true martyr and an example to the world, reaching immortality. As Seneca said: “It is not how long you live, but how nobly you live.”

A photograph of the student Aitzaz Hasan placed alongside his classmates at the school he helped to save in Pakistan.

Hasan had none of the traits common to the great heroes of history, such as striking looks or charisma. Nor was he called a “hero” in some eloquent speech delivered by a reality show host. Hasan was a good student who lived a simple life, without grand ambitions, in the quiet north-west of Pakistan. Medals and honours would be little to match this young man’s act of heroism.

“True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.” – Arthur Ashe