LAHORE: Pakistan Awami Tehreek Chairman Dr Tahirul Qadri on Monday urged the armed forces to provide his party “justice” in the Model Town incident where over a dozen PAT activists were killed in a police action last June.
“I urge the Rangers, army commanders and authorities of security agencies to see that 14 bodies in Lahore are awaiting justice,” Dr Qadri told a brief press conference held immediately after his return from abroad here on Monday.
The PAT chief had flown to Canada more than seven months ago following a prolonged agitation at Islamabad over Model Town killings.
Referring to the ongoing Rangers’ operation in Karachi, Dr Qadri said: “Those who are purging Karachi of terrorists should tell (the people) when operation will start in Punjab…for blood is also being spilt here and oppression is touching its peak.”
Whether the people would ever see the day when the rulers would be imprisoned for “ordering murders,” he asked.
Reiterating his allegation that the Model Town incident had been planned in Prime Minister’s House in Islamabad and the Punjab chief minister had been tasked to implement the “plan”, he warned the Sharif brothers that “they will be chased until they are hanged”.
He said Shahbaz Sharif first got formed a judicial commission to probe into the incident and then tried to get it declared illegal when its report allegedly held the government responsible for the episode.
Dr Qadri rejected the JIT report on the incident, alleging it was prepared by the “joint investigation team of killers” and demanded that probe into the incident should be advanced on the basis of the judicial commission’s report.
He said the masses and the media were the actual “JIT” and there was no need for the joint investigation team formed by the government and the police.
The PAT chief demanded that not the murderers but the one who ordered them to murder should be traced.
He told a questioner that his party would cooperate in the matter only if a fair probe was conducted into the crime.
Earlier, the PAT chief was given a warm welcome by his supporters when he arrived at the airport here early in the morning.
Hundreds of party activists managed to sneak into the airport building though only one person was allowed to enter the area to see off or receive a passenger.
A truck equipped with a heavy sound system was somehow brought there and parked in front of the passenger’s lounge where it continuously played ‘Go Nawaz Go’ song.
Dr Qadri was taken to his Model Town residence in a convoy of followers and party workers who kept dancing to the drumbeat in front of his vehicle all along the route.
After the organisers refused to accept Punjab police’s security protocol, private guards and members of PAT “Youth Force” provided Dr Qadri with security cover in view of threats to his life.
The procession, taken out without official permission, covered around 15-km distance from airport to Dr Qadri’s Model Town house in four hours.
PAT chief’s convoy was showered with rose petals all along the route.
Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2015
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