APS monument: PHC seeks compliance report from KP govt

PESHAWAR: A division bench of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday sought compliance report from the provincial government about a court order to remove the present monumental structure in the name of Army Public School martyrs and replace it with another one whose design represents the emotions of the families of the victims.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Syed Afsar Shah and Justice Abdul Shakoor directed the Peshawar Development Authority and secretary education KP to submit compliance report of the high court order before December 14, next date of hearing.

The order was passed by a two-member bench comprising Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan and Justice Muhammad Nasir Mehfooz. It was hearing a case filed by Fazal Khan who had challenged and declared the structure built in the memory of APS students as unsuitable for representing the sacrifices of children.

The PHC had directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to remove the "fibreglass monument" and design a reasonable structure that represents the emotions of the victim families.

The petitioner is the father of Sahibzada Umer Khan, one of the students who, along with dozens of others, was martyred in a terrorist attack on the school on the morning of December 16, 2014.

He told the court that initially a project concept (PC)-I to build the monument had been approved by the competent authority and the government had provided a grant of Rs15 million for it.

However, the petitioner claimed, when officials of the KP Archives and Libraries Directorate learnt about the project, they started grinding their own axe. "Thus, a revised PC-I was initiated and had it approved whereby a meagre sum of Rs6.6 million was shown to be appropriate for the construction of the monument and allied matters. In the revised plan, the purchase of books was introduced, for which a hefty amount of Rs8.4 million was allocated," he added.