APS attack victims move PHC to make information on school carnage public

PESHAWAR: Mothers of victims of the Army Public School (APS) attack on Tuesday submitted an application to the Peshawar High Court (PHC) requesting the court to make them a party to the writ petition to seek orders for the federal and provincial governments to make all the information on the school carnage public.

A total of 23 mothers of the APS martyrs including Shazia Abid, mother of Rafique Raza Bangash, Shagufta Tariq, mother of Shamail Tariq and Nangyal Tariq, Raheela Farhad, mother of Muhammad Furqan Haider, and others filed the application to seek impleadment in the writ petition.

It was stated the applicants had the same grievances mentioned in the writ petition. It said that a number of applications had been submitted to the high- ups of different authorities, but parents of the deceased children have not been satisfied to date about the proceedings, actions, provincial inquiries and results in the matter.

Members of the Women Action Forum, including Rukhshanda Naz, Jamila Gilani, Khurshid Bano, Sana Ijaz, Naheed Afridi and others were also present with the mothers of the APS martyrs while submitting the application.

The writ petition was filed by a lawyer Ajoon Khan, whose young son was killed in the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, 2014. He sought orders for the federal and provincial governments to make all the information on the campus carnage public.

In the petition, lawyer Ajun Khan, father of student Asfand Khan, said consequent to the information of the apparent terrorist attack on the APS, it was the fundamental right of the students and their parents to know about it. He said non-communication of that information amounted to the violation of fundamental rights of the parents, including him.

The petitioner said necessary action to counter the threat was not taken by the administration.

He said whether that was an act of criminal negligence or some secret mission or conspiracy that such a sensitive information or intelligence report was ignored which had resulted into the unforgettable incident of terrorist attack on the APS on Dec 16, 2014, which left 144 students and some staff members martyred.

The respondents in the petition are the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government through chief secretary; provincial home secretary; additional chief secretary of Fata; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa IGP; Nacta, and the federation of Pakistan through interior secretary.

The petitioner said since the terrorist attack on APS, he and families of other attack victims had been asking the respondents to inform them why the information of the attack was not communicated to them and what action by them after the attack had been taken to determine and fix the responsibility on the relevant officials which had caused so much damage and harm to the soul of the entire nation.