Youngsters in Peshawar and across Pakistan returned to their classrooms on Monday for the first time since the Taliban attacked a school in the volatile northwestern city in December, killing 150 people, 134 of them children.

Most schools across the country closed for an extended winter break in the aftermath of the attack in which Taliban militants broke into the Army Public School and methodically killed the children.

Pakistan has long been used to almost daily militant attacks but the cold-blooded massacre of so many children has deeply scarred the nation, prompting criticism that the government was not doing enough to curb the insurgency.