Islamabad (TIP): Imran Khan on November 10 faced a barrage of questions at a hearing of the 2014 terror attack on an Army-run school during which the Supreme Court (SC) Bench asked the Pakistan Prime Minister why he was negotiating with the culprits of the massacre of nearly 150 persons, mostly students.

The apex court gave a month-long deadline to the government to determine the responsibility for security failure in the horrific attack in which 147 persons, 132 of them children, were killed when Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants stormed Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar.

The three-judge Bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed, had summoned Khan. The court asked the Prime Minister about the action taken after a special commission in its probe presented to the court last year reported that security failure was responsible

for the attack. “The satisfaction of the parents (who lost their kids in the attack) is necessary,” said Justice Ahsan addressing the premier.

“You are in power. The government is also yours. What did you do? You brought the guilty to the negotiating table,” Chief Justice Ahmed told Khan. In his response, Khan said at the time of the attack, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party was ruling in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and it could only provide material compensation, which it did by giving monetary support to the victims’ families. The response angered the court and the Chief Justice remarked that the premier was rubbing salt on the wounds of the victims. — PTI