LAHORE: The Supreme Court has issued notices to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Opposition Leader in National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif and 137 others nominated in a case lodged by the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) regarding the 2014 Model Town incident.

Bisma Amjad, an aggrieved woman of the incident, filed an application to the chief justice requesting to constitute a new Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to probe into the killings of innocent workers of the PAT/Idara Minhajul Quran.

The other parliamentarians and bureaucrats nominated by the PAT include Punjab opposition leader Hamza Shahbaz, former law minister Rana Sanaullah Khan, ex-railways minister Khwaja Saad Rafiq, ex-defence minister Khwaja Asif, former information minister Pervez Rashid, former state minister Abid Sher Ali, former interior minister Nisar Ali Khan, then personal secretary to chief minister Syed Tauqir Shah, former home minister Azam Suleman and then Lahore Commissioner Rashid Mahmood Langrial.

The [accused] police officers include ex-IGP Mushtaq Ahmad Sukhera, former DIG Operations Lahore Rana Abdul Jabbar and then SP Security Salman Ali Khan.

A two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar will hear the application on Nov 19. The court would decide a legal point whether a new JIT could be formed at this stage of the case.

On Sept 26 last, a three-judge bench of the Lahore High Court with a majority decision by 2 to 1, had dismissed two criminal revision appeals challenging a trial court’s decision on a private complaint by the PAT to the extent of non-summoning of 12 suspects including PML-N’s leaders and bureaucrats.

The majority decision said, “It may not be proper for this court (LHC) to enter into reasoning for non-summoning the respondents as accused at this point in time when no allegation is made against the respondents and proceeding against them on the basis of such complaint would be abuse of process of court.”

It ruled that the matter could not be remanded to the trial court for further inquiry in specified manner as the judge of the ATC applied his mind while recording order of non-summoning respondents as accused, therefore, it could not be said that the reasoning given for non-summoning the respondents as accused by the trial judge was illegal and perverse.

At least 14 persons were killed and over 100 injured during an ‘anti-encroachment’ operation outside the Model Town residence of PAT chief Dr Tahirul Qadri on June 17, 2014. Jawad Hamid of PAT had filed the private complaint before the trial court.

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2018