Parents want judicial commission to probe APS tragedy

PESHAWAR: Members of the Shuhada Ghazi Forum of Army Public School on Friday demanded the federal government to form a judicial commission to investigate the attack on the school on December 16 last year.
Addressing a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club, the forum’s general secretary Ajun Khan said that four months had passed but Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had yet to express his solidarity with the parents of the martyred APS schoolchildren.Ajun Khan was flanked by the parents of the martyred students. Ajun Khan said the Prime Minster had come to the city only for point-scoring.
It may be mentioned that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited Peshawar on Friday to meet the victims of the recent rain and windstorm and gave them compensation cheques for the human and material losses suffered by them. The parents questioned as to why the government had not initiated an investigation into the APS tragedy. They said the government should have shown the bodies of the attackers to the media.
“The wife of the Punjab chief minister, Tehmina Durrani, just came for a photo session. She did nothing for the victim families,” complained the mother of one of the late schoolchildren. She said they would record their protest at the international forums if the federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments failed to provide them justice.
The parents maintained that they didn’t need any financial compensation. However, they said the Prime Minister should have visited the families of the martyred schoolchildren also when he came to Peshawar on Friday to express solidarity with the rain-affected people.
They also criticised Imran Khan and said the party chairman had promised the APS victims at the Chief Minister’s House that the issues would be taken up in parliament but no such effort was made.