Model Town violence: PAT to flag off nationwide protest campaign on Saturday

Party announces signature campaign against former secretary.

LAHORE: Pakistan Awami Tehreek central president Raheeq Ahmed Abbasi said on Tuesday that the party would be organising a nation-wide campaign against the government’s failure to form a judicial commission to probe the June 17 Model Town violence and apprehend those responsible for it.

Abbasi said protest demonstrations in this regard would be staged across the nation. He said the first of these protests would be staged on January 17 in the city. Abbasi said a signature campaign would also be started against former principal secretary to chief minister Tauqeer Shah, who had been posted to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). He said the campaign would commence on Wednesday at the PAT secretariat. Abbasi said relatives of those killed and injured would sign a complaint exposing Shah’s role in the episode. He said the complaint will be forwarded to the organisation’s headquarters.

The PAT leader said that the party had postponed the staging of its rallies in the wake of the Peshawar carnage. He said the party had organised the rallies to mark the passage of six months since the violence. Abbasi said the government had failed to make the report of a one-man judicial commission probing the violence public.

Abbasi said the government was incapable of nabbing those responsible for the Peshawar massacre and the Wagah border bombing. He said those resoponsible for the June 17 Model Town violence on the other hand had influential posts. Abbasi said the party had to approach Lahore High Court to get the report of the commission but the home secretary had failed to forward the report to it despite the court’s order to its bewilderment.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2015.