Pakistan’s top judge orders first official probe into 2014 attack on Peshawar military school that left more than 150 people dead
Criticism of Pakistan’s powerful armed forces, especially their counter-insurgency operations, is largely seen as a red line in the country
Pakistan’s top judge has ordered the first official investigation into the country’s deadliest terror attack, a massacre at a school that killed more than 150 people in 2014, authorities said on Thursday.
Relatives of the victims – mainly children – have long called for an accounting of the security and intelligence failures that allowed Pakistani Taliban gunmen to storm the school, run by the powerful military, in the northwestern city of Peshawar on December 16 that year.
No government or military official has ever been held to account for the security failings. Criticism of Pakistan’s powerful armed forces, especially their counter-insurgency operations, is largely seen as a red line in the country.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar ordered the formation of a judicial commission to examine the attack during a court hearing in Peshawar on Wednesday, said Abdul Latif Yousafzai, advocate general of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The inquiry was set to be completed in two months, he added.
We want the commission to probe the incident and place a responsibility for the negligence and failure of the state
No official explanation of the timing was given. But the announcement came after the newly formed Pashtun Protection Movement (PTM) civil rights group has made the issue a central demand in recent months, putting renewed pressure on the government.
PTM is set to hold a massive rally in the sprawling port city of Karachi on Sunday, which is home to millions of ethnic Pashtuns and expected to draw thousands of supporters.