ISLAMABAD: The Senate echoed on Friday with a demand for holding inquiries into all major terror attacks in different parts of the country over the last decade to expose those who were responsible for breach of security.

During a debate on an adjournment motion moved by retired Colonel Tahir Mashhadi of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar, some senators also called for an inquiry into the 1999 Kargil fiasco.

Mr Mashhadi suggested setting up of a judicial commission to expose those guilty of negligence in providing security to the school, where the Taliban attack left over 140 schoolchildren and teachers dead in Dec 2014.

Supporting Mr Mashhadi’s call, a number of senators from both the treasury and opposition benches regretted that parliament was not even aware of findings of the inquiry commission formed to investigate the Abbottabad incident in which the US Marines killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a military operation in May 2011.

Former interior minister Rehman Malik asked the government to take an extreme step of stopping transit trade with Afghanistan to force the country to hand over Mullah Fazlullah, who had claimed responsibility for the massacre of schoolchildren.

The former minister wanted to know whether handing over of the “chief terrorist Fazlullah” was part of the agenda for the talks to be held with Afghanistan later this month.

He asked the government to hold an in-camera session of parliament to discuss the report of the inquiry commission on the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The PML-Q’s Mushahid Hussain Syed said that no one had been held responsible for major terror attacks even on the country’s sensitive installations, including the army’s General Headquarters (GHQ), Kamra airbase and Karachi’s Mehran naval base. “This culture of cover-up must be ended,” the PML-Q senator said.

He also suggested an inquiry into the helicopter crash in Naltar that left the ambassadors of Norway, the Philippines and Indonesia dead in May last year. He said the inquiry report into the crash had not been made public. “This has been a cause of concern for the diplomatic community.”

The most hard-hitting speech on the matter was delivered by Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif of the MQM. He termed the APS attack a consequence of “criminal negligence”.

“It is regrettable that on the one hand culprits of the APS attack are being executed and on the other, the entire nation is being kept in the dark about the incident,” he said.

“We should be told as to which units of the army were responsible for security of the school as it is situated in the cantonment area,” he said.

The MQM senator also criticised the judiciary for not taking notice of the incident, saying that in the past the courts had taken suo motu notices of even minor incidents.

Retired Lt Gen Salahuddin Tirmizi of the ruling PML-N said that there was need to investigate the Kargil debacle which brought humiliation for the country and damaged the Kashmir cause.

He also recalled as to how Pakistan had to refuse to receive bodies of soldiers declaring them Mujahideen and how the civilian government was then asked to seek the international support for de-escalation of the situation along the border.

He said that even India had constituted an inquiry into Kargil tragedy and punished those responsible for the lapse of security and then in the light of the inquiry they had prepared new SOPs (standard operating procedures).

PPP’s Farhatullah Babar said that the investigation should also be held into incidents of attacks on journalists and the Bannu jailbreak in which dozens of dangerous terrorists escaped.

Mr Babar suggested that the APS attack inquiry issue should be referred to the Senate defence committee.

He said that a veil of secrecy must be lifted to get to know the mastermind of the APS attack, the perpetrators, what went wrong and where and how to stop such fatal incidents in future.

“The families of the martyred children in particular and the people in general will continue to twist and turn till they are provided some details and no amount of compensation will satisfy them,” he said.

At the end of the debate, Senate chairman Raza Rabbani suggested establishment of a museum in memory of martyrs of the APS in Peshawar. He said even the gruesome and graphic pictures should be put on display to remember the tragedy.

He said that such museums had already been set up in some countries of the world, including Cambodia, Japan (Hiroshima) and Egypt (Cairo).

Mr Mushahid Hussain Syed praised the suggestion of Mr Rabbani and said that Cambodia had set up a genocide museum where they had even placed skulls of the victims of genocide.

Published in Dawn, January 2nd, 2016