Peshawar school massacre: JC to submit its report to Pak's top court by end of June
Peshawar school massacre: JC to submit its report to Pak's top court by end of June
A single-member judicial commission has completed probe into the 2014 Army Public School massacre and is likely to submit its report to the Supreme Court by the end of this month, a media report said on Thursday. The commission was formed by the Peshawar High Court on October 12, 2018, on the apex court's orders.
The focal person of the commission, Imranullah Khan, said here on Wednesday that the commission was finalising the probe report and would submit it to the Supreme Court by the end of June, Dawn newspaper reported.
"Peshawar High Court Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan of the judicial commission has recorded the statements of around 140 people, including injured students, parents of deceased students and the army and police officials, and examined the investigations conducted by the police and security agencies,” according to the focal person.
During the in-camera proceedings, some parents had also requested the commission to summon former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and former army chief General Raheel Sharif.
However, the commission rejected the request declaring the appearance of the two before it is not necessary.
Among the key army officers, whose statements were recorded by the probe body, were former Peshawar Corps Commander Lt-General Hidayatur Rehman, then chairman of Army Public Educational Institutions (APEI) Board of Governors (BoG) Brigadier Mudassir Azam, officer of 102 Brigade, HQ-11 Corps, Brigadier Inayatullah, Major Dr Asim Shehzad of Army Medical Corps, and secretary of the BoG Colonel Hazrat Bilal.
The commission also recorded statements of some senior police officials.
Appearance of some army officers was delayed last year due to Indo-Pak border tensions.
The commission had sent a letter to the defence ministry on February 11, 2019, to ensure the appearance of eight army officers before it for recording statements in connection with the APS attacks, which killed 147 people, mostly students.
In April last year, it sent a reminder to the defence ministry seeking information about the dates on which those military officers will be available for the purpose.
The officers later turned up before the commission and recorded statements regarding the carnage.
The then Supreme Court chief justice, Mian Saqib Nisar, had taken notice of the matter in April 2018 during a visit to Peshawar when several parents of the students killed by militants on campus approached him with a request to address their grievances.
The parents questioned why proper security measures were not adopted after the National Counter Terrorism Authority had informed different provincial and federal authorities on August 28, 2014, that militants of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan would carry out attacks against the Army Public School and College and other educational institutions run by the army.
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