Protests planned to make Najfi probe report public: Qadri

LAHORE: PAT chief Dr Tahirul Qadri on Wednesday said justice in the Panama Leaks case removed the elder Sharif from power but the justice in the Model Town killings would result in the hanging of the Sharif brothers.

He announced that the Qisas movement would be expanded after Eid, holding rallies and protests in Faisalabad, Multan, Rawalpindi and other cities to press for the demand of making the Justice Baqar Najfi commission report public.

“Wives and children of the victims want to know what is written in that report. If it doesn’t hold the Sharif brothers responsible for the killings, then why are they afraid of making it public?” he asked.

Holding Shahbaz Sharif responsible for the Model Town shooting, he said his party’s Qisas movement would only end after Shahbaz Sharif and another character at his back in Punjab were punished with death.

“The thief has been caught. The murderer behind the Model Town incident is still at large,” Qadri said.He was addressing a sit-in by the families of Model Town shooting victims at the Istanbul Chowk. Sheikh Rashid, Manzoor Wattoo, Dr Yasmeen Raashid, Dr Firdaus Ashiq Awan, Mehmood-ur-Rasheed, Naheed Khan and others also attended the event. The venue spread from the Old Tollington Market to the National College of Arts.

Qadri addressed the protesters twice, first in the evening from 6pm to 7:30 pm and then at 9:30 pm when the sit-in was scheduled to be called off according to the directives of the Lahore High Court which ordered the PAT to end it by 10pm.

Qadri repeatedly asked the Lahore High Court Chief Justice Mansoor Ali Shah to see that the victims’ families were denied justice for the last three years. However, he said, “Our protest is not against the judiciary, we are only inviting the attention of judiciary towards the denial of justice to the victims.”

He also asked the chief justice to set up an impartial bench to hear the PAT’s petition for a fair trial of the Model Town killings and release of Justice Baqar Najfi commission report.Qadri termed Nawaz Sharif as the pioneer of corruption in politics and alleged that the former prime minister purchased loyalties of parliamentarians, introduced horse trading in politics and thus desecrated the sanctity of vote. He accused Nawaz of conspiring against the governments of Benazir Bhutto, indulging in confrontation with presidents, army chiefs and chief justices and using money to achieve his aims.

The PAT chief said Nawaz’s intention to remove articles 62 and 63 was actually aimed at removing checks on the corrupt persons entering parliament and corruption of government officials. He wants to make the judiciary powerless with zero checks on his business empires, said Qadri.

He warned that his organisation would go to any extent for getting justice for the victims of the Model Town tragedy, saying the protesters should not be taken for granted just because they were peaceful. He said the Sharif brothers should just wait. “It’s only a matter of time now. The Sharifs will meet their end very soon,” he added.

Qadri said Nawaz only remembered the need for revolution and justice after he was disqualified for corruption and concealing his assets. He asked the state institutions that the process beginning with the disqualification of Nawaz must reach its logical conclusion by bringing all the corrupt and autocratic elements on the political scene to justice.

Speaking on the occasion, Sheikh Rashid said Nawaz was a dictator who had confronted every army chief and chief justice since he wanted to dominate all the state institutions. He warned the disqualified prime minister that he would soon become a non-entity if he continued challenging the army and the judiciary.