ISLAMABAD - On this day three years ago the young students, the teachers and staff of the Army Public School Peshawar bore the brunt of the tyrants and religious fanatics and shed their blood that brought the entire nation together to resolve to fight the extremists to the finish, said former President Asif Ali Zardar on Saturday.
He said: “all those who were martyred in the gruesome attack on APS that day are national heroes and heroines and while we salute them we also pledge that their sacrifices will not go in vain”.
In a message on the third anniversary of the attack on APS, the former president also deplored that the National Action Plan (NAP) devised to root out terrorism to avenge the blood of the martyrs had not been implemented in letter and spirit.
Failure in implementing the NAP amounts to rejecting the sacrifices of countless shuhada of the armed forces, the para-military forces, the police and the civilians in the fight against militancy and extremism, he said.
On this day we also call for bringing all perpetrators of the heinous crime to justice and accountability of those who have failed in implementation of the NAP, he said.
The former President lamented that banned militant organisations had resurrected under different names behind the façade of charity work.
FATA reforms promised in the NAP were thrown to the wind as the proposed Bill was mysteriously withdrawn from the Agenda of the National Assembly without any reason a few days ago.
Zardari demanded the government to bring up immediately before the Parliament the FATA Reforms Bill that paves way for merger of tribal areas with the Pakhtunkhwa province as part of the NAP to pay homage to the martyrs of APS Peshawar.