LAHORE: Pakistan Awami Tehreek chief Dr Tahirul Qadri has said that the party will challenge before the Lahore High Court the Anti-Terrorism Court decision on not trying the Sharif brothers and the minister in the Model Town case.

In a press conference via video link from Canada here on Wednesday, he said the IG and other officials were summoned by the court on the basis of evidence provided by the PAT but the “mastermind” behind the Model Town killings had been given a clean chit on the same evidence.

He said the officials had no right to stay in office till the final verdict is made.

He claimed that Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah had admitted before the joint investigation team (JIT) that on Jun 16, 2014, a meeting was held at the civil secretariat to remove barriers from around Model Town offices of PAT. It was attended by Commissioner Rashid Langrial, Home Secretary Azam Salman and CM’s Principal Secretary Dr Tauqir Shah and others.

The court could have summoned minutes of the official meeting, the PAT leader said, adding the admission of holding the meeting and the evidence submitted by PAT were enough to try all the bigwigs. “Had the court summoned the minutes, the masterminds would have been exposed.”

Dr Qadri recalled that the Punjab chief minister had announced at a press conference that he was setting up a judicial commission on Model Town killings and if anything was proved against him, he would resign. But the report of the commission was never made public, he regretted.

He said if the Qazi Essa Commission [set up on Quetta carnage] report could have been made public, why not the Baqar Najafi report.

He said PAT had moved the LHC two years ago for release of the Najafi report. He vowed that his party would not budge an inch on its stance on Qisas (retribution) and reiterated that PAT wanted trial of the mastermind behind the killings.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2017