APS victims’ families demand judicial commission investigation

Shuhada Forum demands FIRs be refiled, death certificates among other things

PESHAWAR: Members of the Shuhada Forum have demanded the federal and provincial governments form a special judicial commission to investigate the Army Public School attack. Otherwise, they have threatened to boycott all events held in memory of the December 16 tragedy and to return medals awarded to the martyred students from APS. The members of the forum were addressing a news conference held at Peshawar Press Club on Monday.

Shuhada Forum is a group of representatives from 43 families of those who were killed in the attack.



Judicial commission

Shuhada Forum President Fazal Khan said the group has been asking the federal government to properly investigate the tragedy by formulating a judicial commission, but unfortunately, the request has been completely ignored. “Both federal and provincial governments have adopted a strange silence over the issue and nothing has been done to provide justice to the families,” he said.

“We are not satisfied with what the Pakistan Army, federal and provincial governments are doing,” said Fazal, adding the forum members were told four of the offenders were recently hanged in Kohat but no other information was provided to them – information about how they were arrested, what their role was in the attack and where their trial took place.

He said the APS tragedy was a well-planed conspiracy and the government had information about it before it happened. However, it did nothing to prevent the “calamity” from happening. “The IGP said the attack occurred because of K-P police’s negligence. Even then, no action has been taken against police officers,” said Fazal.





PTI Chairperson Imran Khan had also promised he would do his part and bring justice to the families of the martyred APS victims. “Even he has adopted a strange silence on the issue,” Fazal added.

The forum members asked the Peshawar High Court and Supreme Court of Pakistan to take suo motu notice of the issue as “politicians and governments have failed to alleviate the plight of the families who have been mourning ever since their children were killed.”

Register new FIRs

The members of the forum also complained about the FIR registered in the case, and said the investigation has not been up to par. “Neither the number nor the names of all martyred children was written in the FIR; their parents’ names were also not written in it,” Fazal said. “Only one army person was killed in the tragedy. However, they have mentioned 13 in the FIR,” added the head of the forum.

Some members of the families also demanded separate FIRs for each of the student martyred in the tragedy.



Also, families demanded death certificates of their martyred loved ones from the government. “We received notes saying the dead body has been received, but we need proper documents,” said Zahoor Alam, the general secretary of the forum.

Funds in the victims’ names

Members of the forum also accused the government of mismanaging the funds given by international donors in the wake of the APS tragedy. “Public figures and delegates from around the world have come here and donated millions of dollars but what the government has done with the fund - we do not know,” said Fazal.

Once the government announced it would build a memorial in Peshawar at the cost of Rs2 billion but there has been no implementation of that, he added. “Now it says it will build a small memorial in the ground of Peshawar Archives and Public Library, but the families refuse to accept such insignificant gestures.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th,  2015.