JIT hearing: Punjab CM was unaware of Model Town carnage

Countinuing their boycott, PAT leaders did not show up

LAHORE:

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif appeared before a new joint investigation team (JIT) on Saturday and pleaded ignorance over last year’s deadly crackdown on the Minhajul Quran International Secretariat in a posh neighbhourhood of Lahore.

Fourteen activists of Allama Tahirul Qadri’s Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) were killed and 90 injured in clashes triggered by the Punjab police move to remove barriers and roadblocks from the party’s headquarters in Model Town.

Chief Minister Shahbaz, assisted by two lawyers, fielded all the questions put to him by the investigators. He said he was unaware of the incident, claiming that he only found out about it the next morning when he watched the television.

Shahbaz said it was the town municipal administration’s decision to remove encroachment where they had faced resistance, because of which the incident had occurred.

Continuing to boycott the JIT, PAT leaders did not appear before the inquiry body. PAT General Secretary Khurram Nawaz Gandapur said it was not the chief minister that had appeared before the JIT, but rather the JIT had been granted an audience with the chief minister.

He claimed that Shahbaz Sharif had said on record that he had come to know of the incident after 9am, and all the killings had occurred after 10am, adding that the protest against removing barriers had taken an ugly turn only after it had come to the chief minister’s notice.

He said his party did not expect justice from the incumbent Punjab government, which, he said, was unwilling to provide the PAT with a copy of the JIT report.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 15^th, 2015.