Sitting on red picnic chairs outside in the morning chill, the men had gathered along a disused train track to bury Mubeen Shah.

Until Tuesday, the 16-year-old was an ordinary schoolboy at the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar. But yesterday, as his handsome portrait was shared around the world through social media, his funeral was held.

“He was very good-looking and top in his class,” said Anwar Afridi, a cousin. “What evil have we done for a boy like that to be killed?”

Mubeen’s was far from the only burial in Peshawar yesterday. Another photograph circulated widely on social media showed him with his best friends, Rafiq Bangash, Tayyab Yaqub and Muhammad Yaseen. All were killed in the massacre of schoolboys by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) gunmen which left 148 – most of them teenage boys – dead.

Across the shell-shocked city, umpteen funerals took place. For many, prayers were held in local mosques before coffins were taken off for burial, many to outlying ancestral villages. Peshawar was only just beginning the three days of national mourning during which shops, schools and many businesses will remain shut. But, even with the distraction of funerals and hospital visits, anger was never far from the surface.

“The teachers wore long beards and were fully Islamic people,” said Zishan Ahmed, a former APS student who had come to the Combined Military Hospital to comfort wounded friends. “What type of terrorists are they? How can they say they are for Islam when they are just against Islam and the peace and prosperity of Pakistan?”

Even the sight of soldiers hurriedly bearing silver parcels for the patients – luxury hampers from prime minister Nawaz Sharif, a man famously fond of food – did little to lighten the mood among parents and relatives. "If Nawaz comes here, I'd like to have a word with him," said Ali Khan, whose son was recovering from a gun wound. "Everyone here thinks this government is not competent to deal with this."

Mass killings

The country, and particularly Peshawar, has endured numerous mass killings over the years. But the APS massacre struck the national nerve particularly painfully.

Some television journalists have struggled to restrain their tears and vigils have sprouted up across the country.

“This time it’s different, it’s the worst,” said Rahimullah Yousafzai, a veteran journalist who has reported on every terrorist attack to affect his home town. “With so many children killed the emotional effect is very strong, with women saying that if they get hold of these people they should be tied to a pole and cut with a knife.”

Public anger was further heightened by a drip feed of horrific new details of the attack, which lasted more than seven hours. The army spokesman Asif Bajwa conducted a tour of the bloodstained rooms and battle-scarred halls for the media, revealing more of the events that unfolded in the school’s auditorium, the first building in the large compound to be targeted. The assailants, after breaking down the hastily locked doors, sprayed the students gathered for a first aid lecture by army medics with bullets.

Mown down

Bajwa said one of the men jumped on to the stage to get extra height as he mowed down children desperately trying to find cover under the theatre chairs.

A portion of the raked seating was covered in so much blood it suggested one of the attackers may have detonated himself there, helping to ensure 100 people were killed in that room alone.

One group of boys survived the carnage by racing into a small changing room behind the stage.

“There were 15 of us all pretending to be dead,” said Mehran Khan, a 14-year-old who was shot in the hand when the gunmen first burst into the hall. “One attacker came inside and tried to see if we were still alive by treading on us,” he said, surrounded by relatives and onlookers in the filthy surroundings of the city’s decrepit Lady Reading hospital.

“We waited there for one and a half hours to be rescued by the army.”

Survivors recovering after operations in the city’s hospitals spoke of the appalling sadism of the attack, for which the TTP has claimed credit. Their accounts included the burning to death of some teachers in front of their terrified students.

For all the tough words about terrorism coming from the prime minister and other public figures, many doubt Pakistan is about to turn against the panoply of militant groups resident in the country.

Some analysts say it has to be selective with a hydra-headed monster which is so highly developed. One sign of the deep social penetration enjoyed by some militants was at young Mubeen’s funeral, where mingling among the crowd were men in fluorescent tabards bearing the initials FIF.

A welfare organisation that makes a point of helping out at the scene of disasters, the Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation is the “welfare” wing of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which is in turn the front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the organisation accused of staging the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. All three organisations are proscribed by the UN’s terrorism sanction committee.