PAT changes date of Model Town APC to Dec 30

LAHORE: The Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) led by Dr Tahirul Qadri has changed the date of the all parties conference (APC) called after the release of the Model Town inquiry report to December 30.

Earlier, PAT had announced that the APC would be held on December 28, during which a future course of action would be announced. Dr Tahirul Qadri has called on Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah to step down from their positions by December 31, in light of the Model Town inquiry report.

The incident on June 17, 2014, had claimed lives of at least 14 people and left over 100 others injured during an 'anti-encroachment operation' by Punjab Police outside Idara Minhajul Quran in Lahore's Model Town. 

Model Town report 

The Punjab government, at the behest of the Lahore High Court, had made the report of the Model Town incident public on December 5.

The inquiry report, prepared by Justice Baqir Najfi commission, says that police tried to cover up the facts regarding who gave orders to open fire on protesters.

It adds that no legal opinion was sought from the Punjab advocate general prior to the start of the operation.

The commission, in its report, also stated that on the ground, the standoff continued the whole night, resulting in minor injuries to police constables as well as PAT workers.

It was after 9am that the DIG Operation arrived at the site, who called the SPs of different divisions of Lahore, and as a result the policemen started increasing in response to the swelling up of the PAT activists, the report says.

The commission observed: "The level of cooperation in digging out the truth is that no police official from top to bottom, whether actively participated in the operation or not, did utter a single word about the person under whose command the police resorted to firing upon the PAT workers."

Further, in its conclusion, the commission said, "It is shocking to note that everyone has deliberately but unsuccessfully tried to cover each other from possibly adverse legal effects."