By BR Web Desk

The Supreme Court (SC) has given the government four weeks time to take action against those responsible for the attack on Army Public School (APS) and submit a report, Aaj News reported on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Imran Khan had earlier appeared before SC today after being summoned by the apex court. A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed took up the case proceedings today.

The PM briefed the SC on the progress made in the APS attack case. He told the bench that a National Action Plan was helmed after the APS massacre.

While speaking to the media after the court hearing, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry alongside Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid said that it was easy for the government to accuse and blame the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz under whose tenure the APS carnage took place.

But, he added, the PM set an example and had appeared before the court.

“The Supreme Court has given the government four weeks to take action against those responsible for the attack on Army Public School," he shared.

Meanwhile, the interior minister stated that the PM had assured the court that all those responsible will be exposed.

Earlier during the hearing in the morning, the CJP inquired whether the PM had read the court's order. Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) Khalid Jawed Khan replied that the court's orders were not relayed to the PM, adding that he will brief the premier himself. At this, the CJP had summoned the PM before the court.

Last month, the SC had directed the AGP to take steps for redressing the grievances of the APS's martyrs’ families. The families of the APS martyrs had expressed dissatisfaction over the measures taken by the provincial and the federal governments, saying that action was taken only against low-level officials, but no case was registered against the top officials.

They requested the bench “to order for the registration of an FIR against the then Army Chief General (retired) Raheel Sharif, DG ISI Lt-Gen (retired) Zaheerul Islam, Corps Commander, Peshawar, Lt-Gen (retired) Hadayatur Rehman, the then Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and the then Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak,” who they claimed are actually responsible for the tragic incident.

“If action is taken against them then such incident could be prevented in the future,” the heirs of the martyrs said.

On December 16, 2014, a total of 147 people, 132 of them children, were martyred when militants stormed the APS-Warsak School, in Peshawar.

This article first appeared in Business Recorder on Nov 10, 2021.