Pakistan Supreme Court on Wednesday grilled Prime Minister Imran Khan during the hearing on the 2014 terror attack on a school which was carried out by Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) from whom Imran Khan has recently removed the ban. “You are in power. The government is also yours. What did you do? You brought those guilty to the negotiating table,” Chief Justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed said.
In the 2014 massacre, 147 people, 132 of them children, were martyred when TTP militants stormed the APS-Warsak School, in Peshawar. Imran Khan was summoned by the apex court for Wednesday’s hearing.
“Are we going to surrender once again?” Justice Qazi Mohammad Amin Ahmed asked the PM as the premier appeared before the bench.
Imran Khan told the bench that the 2014 attack was very painful and his party was in power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when the attack took place. “Find out why 80,000 people were killed. Also, find out who is responsible for 480 drone attacks taking place in Pakistan,” Imran Khan said.
In reply, the chief justice said, “Finding out about these things is your job, you are the prime minister. As the prime minister, you should have the answer to these questions…You are the prime minister, you should have answers.”
“Mr Prime Minister, we are not a small country. We have the sixth largest army in the world,” said Justice Amin.
The attorney general, on behalf of the government, accepted the mistakes. “FIR could not be registered against higher-ups,” the attorney general said.
“Where do the intelligence [agencies] disappear when it comes to the protection of their own citizens? “Was a case registered against the former army chief and others responsible?” the chief justice asked. The attorney general replied that the inquiry report did not find anything related to the former army chief and former director-general of the Inter-Services Intelligence.
“There is such a huge intelligence system in the country. Billions of rupees are spent on it. There is also a claim that we are the best intelligence agency in the world. So much is being spent on intelligence but the results are zero,” the chief justice said.
“We could have simply said the PML-N was in power at that time and accused then-PM Nawaz Sharif and the former interior minister of failure. But we realise this war is beyond individuals,” information minister Fawad Chaudhry said later outside the court.
The government is in talks with the TTP over a “reconciliation process” and Chaudhry announced on Monday that a “complete ceasefire” had been reached with the banned outfit.
