• The investigation
• The quest for answers
• Enter the apex court (2018 — present)

Disclaimer: Due to the limitations placed on much of the information relating to the attack, we simply cannot provide the absolute complete picture. This is, however, an attempt to collate and process as much information there is in the public domain, in order to give you an idea of the authorities’ response to the attack.

The message was clear. The battle lines had been drawn and there was no going back. The Army Public School (APS) massacre appeared to provide that rare moment of clarity to a nation that had always tippy-toed around the threat of religious fanaticism — no more calls for dialogue and engagement; no more politics of appeasement; no longer would violence be allowed to simmer at the peripheries so long as it didn’t boil over into the mainstream. There would now be no distinction between the good and bad Taliban, vowed voices from the power corridor.

Just over a week after the attack, claimed by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) the PML-N federal government signed off on the National Action Plan — introducing a series of kinetic and non-kinetic measures to counter terrorism, one of which was the decision to try terrorists in military courts.

While there was precedence for military trials for civilians at different times in Pakistan’s history, this was perhaps the first time that there was overarching consensus to their deployment.

Another major move was the lifting of the moratorium on the death penalty. As a result, almost six months after the APS attack, the military’s media wing announced on August 13, 2015, that the chief of army staff had confirmed the death sentences of six terrorists involved in the attack. The same communique added that one terrorist had also been sentenced to life imprisonment.