Model Town mayhem: ‘They started it’

Police accuse PAT activists of instigating the clash.

LAHORE:

The police, in the first information report (FIR) on the killing of 10 people associated with the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), have accused party leaders and its activists of shooting at the police and instigating the clash.

Police barred the press from entering the police station on Tuesday night and did not provide copies of the FIR to newsmen.

According to the three-page FIR available with The Express Tribune, police held PAT workers and its leadership responsible for the clash which consequently claimed eight lives.

PAT leader Tahirul Qadri’s son Hussain Mohiuddin was nominated as the main accused in the FIR lodged on the complaint of Faisal Town Station House Officer Rizwan Qadir Hashmi.

Other people nominated in the FIR are PAT General Secretary Khurram Nawaz Gandapur, Chief Security Officer Altaf Hussain Shah, and other office-bearers including, Mian Zahid Islam, Sajid Mehmood Bhatti, Sheikh Fayyaz and Tanvir Sindhu.

As many as eight unidentified gunmen and over 3,000 activists of PAT were also accused in the FIR.

The FIR states that 52 PAT activists were taken into custody during the clash on Tuesday. Police also claimed to have seized two Kalashnikovs, three pistols and 33 empty shells from the scene.

The FIR states that PAT activists were deployed on the roofs and bunkers and shot at the police and CDGL officials. The FIR says that they also used petrol bombs against the police.

According to the FIR, police baton-charged PAT activists and fired tear gas shells as a last resort.

The FIR also says that all deaths occurred due to firing by PAT leaders and their activists.

It says that victims had walked into the line of fire, which was actually meant for the police.

However, Faisal Town police refused to display weapons seized from the houses and bunkers in the PAT secretariat.

Interestingly, although the former chief of Lahore police had stated that the police had fired teargas shells at the demonstrators, the FIR says that PAT activists attacked police with tear gas. The case was lodged under several sections of the Pakistan Penal Code, including murder, and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

The three-member committee constituted to determine the role of the police in the incident initiated its investigation on Wednesday. They collected video footage from TV channels and newspaper clippings on the incident.

Nabeela Ghazanfar, PRO to the inspector general,said the committee would also record statements from witnesses.

Funeral prayers for six PAT activists was held the party’s secretariat on Tuesday night.

Two of the bodies were taken to Sheikhupura by their families. Two PAT activists injured in the clashes on Tuesday, succumbed to injuries on Wednesday, raising the death toll to 10.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19^th, 2014.