LAHORE: A son of Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chairman Dr Tahirul Qadri was prominent among those booked in the wake of Model Town tragedy.

The case registered by the Faisal Town police blamed the PAT leaders and around 3,000 activities for confronting policemen during an anti-encroachment drive and attacking the police with stones, petrol bombs and weapons.

The police avoided arresting Qadri’s son Hussain Mohyuddin, PAT central general secretary Khurram Nawaz Gandapur, Chief Security Officer Syed Altaf Shah and others, all nominated in the case, for unknown reasons.

Two separate cases with multiple charges including 7-Anti-Terrorism Act against PAT activists were also registered with the Shahdara and Shahdara Town police on Wednesday last.

Acting Capital City Police Officer Zulfiqar Hameed said the police released six people including a 12-year-old child out of the 53 arrested in connection with the Model Town case and 12 women activists who were taken into custody from Shahdara. He said there were no more arrests on Wednesday.

He said the police were in the process of sending samples of bullet and other wounds taken from the deceased victims’ bodies to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency to determine nature of weapon and bullets and it would take few days to analyse.

Hameed said according to police statistics only seven people including two women had been killed.

A police source confided to Dawn that it was revealed in investigation that bullets fired by Elite police commandoes hit the victims. He said the PAT gunmen resorted to aerial firing but the police opened fire on the mob.

PAT Deputy Secretary Information Hafeez Chaudhry said the police arrested 323 activists and shifted them to different police stations. He said 20 PAT vehicles and 12 others of local residents were damaged by the police and PML-N activist Abdul Aziz alias Gullu Butt.

He said the PAT did not accept police FIR and their legal team was making preparation to challenge the government and police in a court of law.

A police team led by Additional IG Sarmad Saeed Khan launched departmental probe.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2014