LAHORE: A Joint Investigation Team report on the Model Town incident appears to be a road to nowhere — it misses version of the affected party, finds out only junior police officials’ firing but fails to declare whose bullets killed or injured so many people.

The 10-member JIT headed by an additional IG only relied on the available video footages and admitted loopholes in evidence collection to fix responsibility.

Also read: No evidence found from Model Town, says JIT

The 32-page report, which appeared to be an unsigned Urdu language document and was available to media on Tuesday, stated that the responsibility of the incident lay on those officials who ordered firing on protesters and created such an atmosphere which led to violence and bloodshed.

Team relies on low-quality footages, admits loopholes in getting evidence

According to the report: “The video footages have found bunkers and armed people standing at the rooftop of Minhajul Quran Secretariat and Alqadria and it is quite possible that the firing occurred from their side, but it could not be verified through videos so far.”

“Two armed men standing at nearby roofs appeared to be Elite Police commandoes, but low-quality footages could not identify them. Some empties recovered from the crime scene matched the weapons seized from the nominated suspects during forensic analysis, but non-cooperation from the MQS, families of deceased and injured people has restricted the JIT to give final opinion to fix responsibility and identify culprits.”

The report, on the one hand, confirms baton-charge, teargas shelling and aerial firing by police during clash with PAT activists in late hours of June 17 while on the other also gets protesters involved in stone pelting and firing on police.

Nine police officers and officials including SP Salman Ali Khan have been identified through footages as the suspects committing firing from sophisticated weapons.

The report states that four suspects are already on police remand and orders the Faisal Town SHO to arrest five others, including the SP and former Shadman SHO SI Sheikh Asim, who failed to appear before the JIT in their defence.

The JIT report admits several hurdles in its final opinion about the investigation by complaining non-cooperation by MQS management, deceaseds’ families, lack of evidence and non-identification of crime scenes.

The JIT report lacks fixing responsibility on people from both sides, stating that lack of evidence fails to determine as to who committed fire and who became victim of whose firing.

Three nominated accused of the case - Kamran Hashim, Syed Muhammad Ikraam, and Bilal Shahid - were declared innocent following their appearance before the JIT with statements and evidences. While other nominated accused, who belonged to PAT and secured bails, did not appear before the JIT despite repeated calls.

The report does not fix any responsibility on them and directs police to get their bails cancelled for further action.

When contacted to confirm whether the JIT report available to media was an official document, Punjab police spokeswoman Nabeela Ghazanfar said she could neither confirm nor deny the report as she failed to establish contact with the authorities concerned.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2014