LAHORE: Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Dr Tahirul Qadri has said the judicial commission report on election rigging has weakened democracy and it has served the interest of those who had rigged the 2013 general elections.

Speaking at a press conference here on Thursday, Dr Qadri refuted the allegations against him that he had met with former ISI DG Gen Pasha for planning a sit-in.

“I have never met and even spoken to the (army general) on phone and all the allegations are baseless and without any substance.”

Responding to a question, he said since he knew the rulers would never give the PAT justice, his party activists never appeared before the JC or the JIT and that he had given the same advice to PTI chief Imran Khan.

Meanwhile, former interior minister Rehman Malik had to face embarrassment when Dr Qadri snubbed the PPP leader, who said that the Islamabad sit-in had been ended by the PAT on the former’s request.

“You’re not speaking the truth,” the PAT chief said at the launching ceremony of his peace curriculum in Islamabad where Mr Malik had also been invited.

“The sit-in issue never figured in meetings you had held with me and I always talked of the joint investigation team (probing the Model Town tragedy)…I had never uttered a single word to you or any other on ending the sit-in.”

Just minutes before Mr Malik had thanked Dr Qadri for ending the sit-in within three days after his (the minister’s) request that the protest was causing irreparable losses to the country.

One of the participants said that Senator Malik averted condemning the Model Town incident despite repeated calls from those present during the ceremony.

He confined himself to the promise that he would demand in the Senate the publication of reports of all judicial commissions, including the one on the Model Town.

He also promised to table a bill in the upper house for introducing at all levels the peace curriculum prepared by Dr Qadri.

Published in Dawn, July 31st, 2015

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