Imran Khan on Wednesday faced a barrage of questions at a hearing of the 2014 terror attack on an Army-run school during which the Supreme Court bench asked the Pakistan prime minister why he was negotiating with the culprits of the massacre of nearly 150 people, 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 people, 132 of them children, were killed when Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants stormed the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar.
The three-judge bench - headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed, and comprising Justice Qazi Mohammad Amin Ahmed and Justice Ijazul Ahsan - had summoned Khan.
The court asked Khan 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 children in the APS attack] is necessary," said Justice Ahsan addressing the premier. The court also took the government to task for holding talks with the TTP instead of taking any action against those responsible for security failure.
"If the government was going to sign on a document of defeat with those who killed these children…Are we going to surrender once again?" Justice Amin asked the premier.
The government is in talks with the TTP over a "reconciliation process", with Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry having announced on Monday that a "complete ceasefire" had been reached with the banned outfit.
"You are in power. The government is also yours. What did you do?
You brought those guilty to the negotiating table," Chief Justice Ahmed told Khan.
Khan in his response said that 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.