EDITORIAL: Prime Minister Imran Khan set a rare example of equality before law when summoned on Wednesday by a three-member bench of the Supreme Court (SC) headed by Chief Justice (CJ) Gulzar Ahmed. He immediately appeared before the court and stood at the rostrum facing a barrage of uneasy questions and observations for nearly half an hour before availing an opportunity to say his piece.
The court, in its suo motu jurisdiction, had taken up complaints of the parents of children whose lives were brutally cut short in the December 2014 terrorist attack on the Peshawar Army Public School (APS) that shocked the entire nation. It may be recalled that soon afterwards, a political consensus-based National Action Plan was launched to fight terrorism, and military courts were given special powers to try civilians on terrorism charges. Six men locally involved in the APS carnage were tried in military courts and handed death sentence. Five of them have been executed while the review petition of one is pending before the SC.
The mastermind of the attack Umar Mansoor and the chief of the terror outfit, TTP, Mullah Fazlullah, ensconced in Afghanistan, have been eliminated in drone strikes. The victim’s families have also been offered ‘compensation’ — a rather insensitive expression to use for financial assistance in such cases since no price can compensate for the life lost of a loved one.
However, the CJ told the PM that the parents of the victims were not satisfied and wanted to return the ‘compensation’ if those responsible for the massacre were not identified. Their main concern was that those to blame for the security lapse should have been held to account. The grieving parents’ emotional pain is perfectly understandable, so is that of countless others. Imran Khan asked the court to also think about 80,000 people who lost their lives in terrorist attacks as well as drone strikes “by our own allies.”
Ignoring the point he had tried to make, the CJ observed that as PM he had all the answers to the questions he raised. He may have the answers but at issue was something else: affixing of responsibility for what happened in the past. In its order the court mentioned the names at whom the mothers of some children had pointed the finger for failure to provide security – all of them top military brass except one civilian, the then Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister.
Nevertheless, the 2018 judicial commission, constituted on the SC order to probe the APS massacre, had noted in its report that the Army took disciplinary action against those individuals who did not come up to the warranted necessary measures, including dismissal from service, though it also said “when the infidels are within our society, no agency no matter how capable or [well] equipped, could prevent [such] an attack.”
In any event, it is somewhat extraordinary but at the same time indicative of the intense anguish and pain that this brutal perpetration of terror on minors has caused the whole nation, that the PM was summoned to face intense grilling for the apparent past failure of those over whom he has little control.
Although he told the court the AGP had informed him that FIRs could not be registered on grounds of moral responsibility, the court has directed his government to hear out the victims’ parents, that this exercise should be completed in four weeks’ time and a comprehensive report furnished, duly signed by the Prime Minister. As per the court order, Imran Khan has given the assurance that action would be taken in accordance with law against those who failed to perform their duties. It remains to be seen how he grapples with this matter.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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