SC moved to summon Nawaz, Shahbaz in Model Town case

ISLAMABAD: The Minhajul Quran International, a wing of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), has moved the Supreme Court of Pakistan seeking direction for an anti-terrorism court (ATC) to summon former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his brother Shahbaz Sharif and 10 others in connection with the Model Town killings.

Earlier, a trial court on Feb 7, 2017 and the Lahore High Court (LHC) full bench on Sep 26 rejected the PAT request for summoning Sharif brothers. However, now the Minhaj-ul-Quran’s Jawad Hamid through former LHC judge Mazhar Iqbal Sindhu has challenged the LHC order.

The petition contends that the LHC order was against law and facts of the case while the dissenting note of a senior member of the bench for the remand of the case was also not sustainable in the eye of law as sufficient material was available on record to summon the respondents. It says appraisal of the material had been undertaken by the LHC full bench in an extraordinary depth which was neither required, nor permissible or desirable at this stage. It says the criminal roles of respondents in the incident prior to its happening had been brought on the record through solemn statements of the witnesses and by other evidence collected by modern devices and print media.