PESHAWAR: Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday announced that his party would get a resolution adopted by the Senate to seek judicial inquiry into the 2014 Army Public School Peshawar carnage and stern action against culprits.

He made the announcement during a meeting with the parents of the students killed in the Dec 16, 2014, militant attack on the army-run school.

The meeting took place at the house of PPP provincial president Engineer Mohammad Humayun Khan here, where opposition leader in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah, PPP Senator Rubina Khalid, Farhatullah Babar, provincial general secretary Faisal Karim Kundi and leaders Syed Zahir Ali Shah, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Humayun Khan, Qaim Ali Shah and Nighat Orakzai were also in attendance.

A total of 141 people, including 132 children and nine staff members, were massacred by the Taliban militants in the APS attack.

PPP co-chairman meets parents of students killed by militants in 2014

During the meeting with Mr Zardari, Ms Shahana represented the parents, who held the portraits of their children killed by militants.

During discussion on the massacre, the participants, including Mr Zardari, had teary eyes. They later offered Fateha for the carnage victims.

The parents complained about the government’s ‘apathy’ to their demands, including judicial probe into the APS massacre and handing over of former Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan to them, and urged the PPP leader to play his role in this respect.

They also called for a ‘decisive action’ against the attack mastermind based in Afghanistan and said the government should secure his custody through exchange of prisoners.

The parents insisted that the media coverage of Ehsanullah Ehsan was an attempt to glorify him and therefore, the government should step in to stop it.

They said the government had ordered probe into the death of female elephant, Suzi, in Lahore zoo but ironically, it had yet hold judicial inquiry into the APS massacre.

Mr Zardari told parents that his party would get a resolution passed by the Senate to seek action on their demands by the current government and that it would take effective action on them after coming to power.

He said being a father, he knew the pain felt by the parents of the APS students killed by militants and that his party would take all possible steps to assuage their pain.

The PPP leader said the party was committed to the elimination of terrorism from the country and that it was the PPP government that wiped out Taliban from Swat and restored peace in the region.

Referring to the setting up of military courts to try militants, he said this move went against the basic ideology of the PPP but the leadership agreed to it just for the anti-terrorism cause.

Earlier, Mr Zardari visited the house of Awami National Party MNA Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour for lunch on his invitation.

He told reporters on the occasion that during his four days stay, he did not see any ‘developmental change’ in Peshawar.

The PPP leader said his competition was not with Imran Khan and instead, he had come to the province after the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa showed tremendous love for him.

The PPP leader spent a busy fourth day in Peshawar. He held meetings with representatives of People’s Students Federation, People’s Youth Organisation, People’s Doctors Forum, minority wing. He will stay in Peshawar today, too, (Wednesday).

Meanwhile, opposition leader in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah insisted that the federal government was not sincere about merging the Federally Administered Tribal Areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as hadn’t that been the case, the government would have made the merger so far.

He told reporters at the house of PPP provincial leader Humayun Khan here that the ruling PML-N wanted to increase its assembly seats from Fata and wasn’t serious about the grant of rights to the tribal people.

PPP leader Qamar Zaman Kaira, who was also in attendance, criticised the federal government for ‘using delaying tactics’ in merging Fata with KP.

He said the PPP and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf were in contact in the assembly on issues of national importance and that they were cooperating with each other for the resolution of the people’s problems.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2017