ISLAMABAD: The inquiry commission on the Army Public School (APS) attack says the guards' improper position and accentuated main gates and front area compromised the school's security from the back, from where the terrorists managed to enter "with no retaliation".
The revelations were made in the 525-page report, which contains statements of 132 people, including the parents of the martyred school children, and police and army officials. A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, while hearing a suo motu on APS incident, ordered for making the report public. The then chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar on the request of the victims' parents had taken the suo motu notice of the incident, and in October 2018, had set up a one-man judicial commission headed by Justice Ibrahim Khan, a judge of the Peshawar High Court.
The commission was made after the parents of children demanded the authorities form a high-level inquiry commission to investigate the massacre.
More than 140 persons, majority of them children and school staffers, were martyred when militants stormed the school on December 16, 2014.
The attack was claimed by the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The bench on the last hearing (August 4) had ordered Additional Attorney General (AAG) to get instructions from the federal government on inquiry commission report on the APS carnage.
The chief justice noted that action was taken against the junior employees.
He asked the attorney general to stop trend of taking action against junior officers.
Time has come for every incident's investigation to be started from the top, he added.
The chief justice questioned why the information of the attack was not given to the APS administration earlier.
He said the negligent officers were as responsible as terrorists.
The government should ensure that there was no tragedy like the APS attack in future. He said the government was also responsible for making sure the victims' parents were satisfied with the action it had taken.
The chief justice accepted the invitation of the martyrs' parents to visit APS Peshawar. He said those who wanted to achieve the goal achieved it.
"The security agencies should have been aware of this conspiracy. People are not safe even in such high-security zones. How did such a big security lapse occur? What's the point of such high security, when people still are not safe?," the CJP inquired.
Justice Ijazul Ahsan termed the APS massacre "the grief of the entire nation", telling the martyrs' parents that "it is not only your grief, it's our grief as well".
The court refusing to dispose of suo moto adjourned the case for one month.
The attorney-general has been ordered to present the government's strategy on the next date of hearing.
"I can perceive it with utmost honesty that when one's own blood and flesh commit treachery and betrayal, the result would always be devastating."
"No agency; how capable and able in terms of manpower, infrastructure and technology could outperform the impact of any attack effortlessly when infidels are within the inside," said the report
The judicial commission report said that "the three layered security protocol i.e. static guard at the outer gates, MVTs (2 in No.) patrolling in the vicinity of the APS, and QRF destined at a distance of around 10 km from APS Warsak, and the police RRF for response within the Cantonment. MVT was beguiled towards the smoke erupted from the vehicle set ablaze by the terrorists as part of their plan, while leaving the premises of APS Warsak unattended. This act alone gave an edge to the militant to break into the premises of APS Warsak from back side, where the MVT had to patrol. Though other MVT responded but was not capable to buy the needed time for the Quick Response Force (QRF) and Rapid Response Force (RRF) to overwhelm the terrorists' attack, before it could cause the catastrophe."
The report, in its conclusion, noted that terrorism perpetrated by the country's enemies had reached its peak in the year 2013-2014, but added, "this [still] doesn't obligate us to hold that our sensitive installation(s) and soft target(s) could be forsaken as a prey to the terrorists' attack."
It said the entry of terrorists from across the Afghan border into the school's perimeter after "befooling the security apparatus" was mainly due to the porous nature of the border and the "unrestrained movement" of the Afghan refugees across the frontier.
It observed that the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) had issued a generic threat alert about terrorists seeking to target army families and academic institutions as retribution for the successful military operations Zarb-i-Azb and Khyber-I against militants.
Following this, although the armed forces successfully operated against terrorists' niches, "the incident of APS plagued their success stories which deserved deification", the report added.
Detailing the "fiasco" in the school's security apparatus, the inquiry commission said the number of static guards, which comprised the first tier of security, was "incomparable" to the looming threat.
The guards' improper position and accentuated main gates and front area compromised the school's security from the back, from where the terrorists managed to enter "with no retaliation".
"Equally incomprehensible is the inertia on part of the Askari Guards as well as the deputed static guards to the initial heavy firing and blasts by terrorists."
"Had they shown a little response and could engage the militants at the very beginning of the attack, the impact of the incident might have been lesser the report said."
However, it noted that the terrorists' movement towards the adjacent toddlers' block of the school was restricted by soldiers of MVT-2 and QRF on their arrival.
According to the report, the unit regulating MVT-1 has been handed down punishment by a "court of inquiry".
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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