On 16 December 2014, Fazal Khan lost his eldest son, 14-year-old Sahibzada Umar Khan, in the Army Public School Peshawar massacre, during which armed gunmen killed 149 people at the school, including 132 schoolchildren. Umar Khan died as he was shot with four bullets on his chest and hands. The Fazlullah-led Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack. In 2017, when Ehsanullah Ehsan, the former spokesman of the Taliban, was arrested by the authorities, Fazal Khan launched a court case against him and claimed that the Pakistani government was planning to grant clemency to Ehsan. However, Ehsan had already left the TTP before the school massacre to co-found the ISIL-KP (Daesh)-linked Jamaat-ul-Ahrar in August 2014, which was reported to have condemned the TTP attack on APS school in Peshawar. Ehsan left as he had developed ideological differences with the TTP leadership following the appointment of Fazlullah as the leader of the TTP. In December 2017, the Peshawar High Court ruled that the authorities should not release Ehsan and wait until the court trial. However, in February 2020, Ehsan released an audio message, claiming to have fled from Pakistan to Turkey in the previous month. On 12 February 2020, families of the martyrs, led by Fazal Khan, protested outside the Peshawar Press Club against the reported release of Ehsan and demanded to launch an investigation into the incident. "How can a terrorist escape from a highly-guarded red zone area? It is a good joke," said Fazal Khan. The parents of the victims demanded to know about the whereabouts of Ehsan as they had been waiting for justice for over five years.