Pakistan's premier appears in court over 2014 school bombing

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered Prime Minister Imran Khan to take action against those responsible for the security lapse in the 2014 gun-and-bomb attack on an army-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

The three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, also ordered the formation of a commission to probe the security and intelligence failure that led to the gruesome attack in which 140 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed. The attack was claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as Pakistani Taliban, a banned outfit which has recently reached a month-long cease-fire with the government.

Afghanistan's interim Taliban government is facilitating the talks between the two sides.

Khan was summoned by the top court after the attorney general was unable to satisfy the judges regarding progress over action against those responsible for the security lapse.

Encircled by plain-clothes security personnel and attired in a traditional shalwar-kameez, Khan strode to the courtroom, footage aired on local broadcaster Geo News showed.

Over a dozen family members of the children killed in the terrorist attack were present at the hearing. They expressed dissatisfaction at what is being viewed as the government's extension of an olive branch to the perpetrators of the attack, Geo News reported.

At the hearing, the chief justice grilled the attorney general.

"Where do the intelligence (agencies) disappear when it comes to the protection of their own citizens?" the chief justice asked Attorney General Khalid Javed Khan. "Was a case registered against the former army chief and others responsible?" local English daily Dawn reported.

The attorney general, however, contended that the inquiry did not find anything related to the former army chief and former spy chief.

The family members, during the last hearing on Oct. 20, held responsible then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, former army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif, then ISI chief Lt. Gen. Zaheer-ul-Islam and others.

Briefing reporters after the hearing in capital Islamabad, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said the premier has assured the judges that "due" action will be taken.

The executers and the mastermind of the attack, he said, have already been killed.

Umar Mansour, alias Khalifa Mansour, alias Umar Naray, the alleged mastermind of the attack, was killed in a US drone attack in Afghanistan’s northeastern Nangarhar province in July 2016.

Five convicts in this case were executed after courts found them guilty, according to the government statistics

- 'Surrender document'

The bench adjourned the hearing for a month, directing the government to submit a report regarding implementation of the court order on the next hearing.

During the hearing, Justice Qazi Amin expressed his displeasure over the ongoing talks with the TTP asking the premier if the government is going to sign "another surrender document."

"Mr. Prime Minister, Pakistan is not a small country. It has the sixth largest army in the world. You have brought culprits to the table for talks. Are we going to sign another surrender document?" Amin said, according to Geo News.

Khan, for his part, put the blame on joining the so-called war against terrorism for the string of attacks and suicide bombings across the country.

"I always opposed Pakistan's participation in the war on terror. We had nothing to do with 9/11 attacks but the (then) military ruler Gen. Perez Musharaf joined the US war under pressure," Khan was quoted as saying by Geo News.