Plus Ca Change…

The Supreme Court (SC) on October 5, 2018 ordered the appointment of a judicial commission to investigate the 2014 terrorist attack on the Army Public School (APS) Peshawar in which 140 people, including 132 children, were massacred. A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Saqib Nisar instructed the Chief Justice of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) to nominate a senior judge to the commission. The commission is expected to report to the SC after six weeks. The APS case was taken suo motu notice of by the SC in May 2018 after a hearing in Peshawar when the parents of the murdered children, grouped in the APS Martyrs Forum, requested the CJP to order a judicial inquiry into the massacre. Their complaint included the question why the authorities had failed to take any preventive or security action after the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) had issued an ‘alert’ weeks before the APS incident, pointing to the possibility of an attack on a military-run institution. The distraught parents of the victims complained before the SC that they had been demanding justice for the last three years and calling for the appointment of a judicial commission but to no avail. The CJP expressed sympathy for the plight of the victims’ families and regretted that only a verbal order to set up the commission had been issued in May, which could not be implemented so far because a written order could not be issued. At least now that lacuna has been plugged. It may be recalled that the APS massacre galvanized public opinion and forged a consensus amongst the political parties and military to launch counterinsurgency operations against the terrorists in the tribal areas. The consensus included the setting up of military courts to try terrorists, whose sunset clause mandated their closure in two years, but this period now stands extended. It also spawned the National Action Plan to rout terrorism throughout the country, whose results are visible in the decline in terrorist incidents since, but whose efficacy in completely eliminating sleeper terrorist cells throughout the country has often been challenged.

If a nerve-shaking case like the APS massacre cannot find closure even three years after the grisly event, and requires a suo motu notice by the highest court in the land, it only points to the creaky joints of our judicial system. The victims’ parents can now take some comfort from the fact that their repeated pleas over the last three years have finally been heard and acted upon by the SC. As the CJP had occasion to remark during the hearing, those lost in the incident cannot be restored to their families but the balm of closure, both in terms of probing the incident through a judicial commission as well as identifying and punishing those responsible, is necessary if not critical. The APS Martyrs Forum has also pointed out that Ehsanullah Ehsan, once the spokesman of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) who had gloated over the APS massacre but who surrendered to the authorities in April 2017, has been treated with kid gloves and has yet to be brought to justice. In contrast with the snail’s pace movement on this case, the only alacrity visible in our judicial system groaning under the weight of a mountain of pending cases is when one faction or the other of the political class, having fallen out of favour with the establishment, is put in the dock. Other than that, the judicial system’s notorious delays continue to define its character. Not even as horrendous a tragedy as the APS massacre has so far been able to shake the system out if its traditional lethargy till now. The hope is that with the latest SC directive, the suffering and agony of the APS victims’ families may finally be drawing to a close.