APS case: Military officer to complete statement before commission today

PESHAWAR: Former chairman Board of Governors (BoG) of the Army Public School and College, Brig Mudassir Azam would continue his statement today before the Judicial Commission that is holding an inquiry into the terrorist attack on the school.

“The Judicial Commission would complete his statement on the third day of appearance,” Imranullah, focal person for the Judicial Commission, told The News on Sunday. He added that Brig Mudassir Azam had also recorded his statement on January 31 and February 1. Earlier, the Judicial Commission had taken three days to record statement of another military officer, Brig Inayatullah, who had led the operation against the attackers holed up at the Army Public School and College.

The commission had taken one day to record statements of the current and former police chiefs of the province and other officials, but it took six days in case of the military officers. The focal person told The News that the commission would now decide whether the remaining three military officers, including the former Peshawar corps commander Lt Gen ® Hidayatur Rehman, who was patron-in-chief of the Army Public School and College at the time of the 2014 attack, Maj Dr Asim Shahzad of the Army Medical College and secretary of the APS BoG, Maj Imran would be summoned or not.

The Ministry of Defence has shared the schedule of two army officers for recording statements before the probe body. The commission had communicated to it the list of five army officers for recoding their statements. The IGP Salahuddin Mehsud, his predecessor Nasir Durrani and Suhail Khalid, the then SP Counter-Terrorism Department, Peshawar and the former secretary Home and Tribal Affairs Akhtar Ali Shah, who is a retired police officer, have already recorded their statement. Justice Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, head of the Judicial Commission, also paid a visit to the APS where he was briefed by its administration about the attack. As many as 147 people, including 132 students, were martyred in the attack on December 16, 2014.

The then chief justice of Pakistan had taken notice of the issue last year during his visit to Peshawar, where parents of the martyred students, mostly mothers, approached him with their grievances. The prime demand of the parents was fixing responsibility for negligence on the officers concerned due to which the attack had taken place.

The parents came to know about a confidential letter through which the Nacta had on August 28, 2014 informed different provincial and federal authorities the TTP had made a plan to carry out terrorist activities targetting the Army Public School and College and other educational institutions run by the army and kill maximum number of children of army officers to avenge the killings of their accomplices.