LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Wednesday summoned the registrar of a tribunal that held a judicial inquiry into the 2014 Model Town incident.

Justice Shahid Karim was hearing a petition against the Punjab government for not furnishing the record of the judicial inquiry conducted by a one-man tribunal comprising Justice Ali Baqar Najafi of the high court.

An additional advocate general told the court that the record of the inquiry was not with the government but possessed by the tribunal.

At this, the judge sought personal appearance of the tribunal’s registrar on the next hearing.

Advocate Azhar Siddique filed the petition in ‘public’ interest during 2018 asking the court to order the government to furnish a complete record of the inquiry held into the Model Town incident.

The lawyer contended that the home department was not cooperating with him while the matter was highly sensitive as more than 14 innocent citizens were killed by the Punjab police and it was unprecedented in the history of Pakistan.

He said no information had been shared and no compliance of the orders of the court had been shown by the government despite passing more than four years.

The petitioner sough provision of certified copy of a Joint Investigation Team’s report in two FIRs of the incident along with minutes of meeting of the investigation with material, documents, audio, video and any dissent note, if any, in light of the orders of the high court and in view of section 19 (1) of the Anti-Terrorist Act, 1997.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2022