Observer Report
Islamabad
The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the government to make public the report of a judicial commission into the 2014 Army Public School massacre in Peshawar.
In the deadliest terror attack in the country’s history, 131 schoolchildren and 10 other people were martyred when heavily armed militants stormed the school building on December 16, 2014. A two-judge SC bench headed by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed heard the case based on a suo motu notice taken on complaints of the parents of the martyred children, who claimed that the real culprits involved in the gruesome incident had not yet been arrested by authorities.
Following extensive proceedings spread over almost 20 months, the presiding officer of the commission, Justice Mohammad Ibrahim of the Peshawar High Court, had submitted the report to the apex court on July 9. The 525-page report made public Friday provides an insight into the security lapses and local facilitation to militants that apparently led to the horrific attack.
The report in its conclusion noted that terrorism perpetrated by Pakistan’s enemies had reached its peak in the year 2013-14, but said “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 “unrestrained movement” of Afghan refugees across the frontier.
The report termed as “unpardonable” the assistance provided to the militants by the residents of the school’s locality, saying it was “palpable”.
“When one’s own blood and flesh commit treachery and betrayal, the result would always be devastating,” it stated, adding that no agency, no matter how capable or equipped, could effortlessly counter an attack “when infidels are within the inside”.
According to the report, on the morning of Dec 16, 2014, the APS premises was left unattended after an MVT (security patrolling team) moved towards the smoke rising from a vehicle set on fire by the terrorists as part of their plan to create a distraction.
Using this edge, the militants entered the school from the backside. Although another MVT responded to the attack, it wasn’t able to buy the needed time for the Quick Response Force and Rapid Response Force to overwhelm the terrorists before they could “cause the ca
tastrophe”, the report said.
It said the National Counter Terrorism Authority 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,” the report read.
“Had they shown a little response and could engage the militants in the very beginning of the attack, the impact of the incident might have been lesser.”
