Will government let Qadri leave Pakistan?

Qadri adamant that no deal was forged with govt as PAT leader dismisses all cases against Qadri, says deadlock in talks between PAT and govt exists even today

Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) Chairman Dr Tahirul Qadri has said that he may go abroad while he adamantly denied that he had struck a deal with the government to wrap up the party’s anti-government protest sit-in.

Qadri’s announcement that he may travel outside Pakistan at his own discretion has raised an interesting question –will the government let Qadri fly abroad when he has been booked in a number of cases including nine cases under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

A senior PAT leader, talking to Pakistan Today, confirmed that Qadri will go abroad but refused to give a date of his departure saying, “no date ahs been finalised yet”. However, he vowed to resist the government if it tried to stop Qadri from going abroad, saying that “all case registered against Qadri and other PAT leaders are false and fabricated”.

On the other hand, talking to Pakistan Today, senior political analyst Dr Rizvi viewed that the government will not stop Qadri from leaving the country despite the fact that a number of cases have been registered against him.

“The government would like to see the PAT chief leaving the country as it would at least silence the guns trained at the government from one side,”the analyst said.

On a question whether Qadri’s U-turn – from ‘revolution’ to calling off the sit-in, announcing to contest elections within the ambit of the current system and the recent announcemnet of the plan to go abroad – has anything to do with a deal struck between government and the PAT chief, the veteran analyst termed it a far-fetched conclusion and said, “A deal can only be confirmed if Qadri does not resume his movement against the government after his return from abroad.”

“I think it is just another political move by Qadri to gain some time to contemplate on the causes of the failure of his anti-government movement and to devise a new strategy to bring down the government,” Dr Rizvi added.

Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid and Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique avoided replying when Pakistan Today sought the government’s version on whether it would allow Qadri to fly away or not.

THERE WAS NO DEAL:

In the meanwhile, a PAT spokesman has strongly rejected that PAT had struck a written deal with the government to end the sit-in in Islamabad, saying that if anyone had a copy of the agreement signed by the two stakeholders, he should bring it to the fore.

“All such news printed in newspapers and telecast on televsion channels is baseless and mal fide,” he said.

He said that the government and PAT were unable to agree upon any demands put forward by each other earlier during negotiations.

The spokesman said that PAT had demanded the formation of an independent Joint Investigating Team with members from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Miltary Intelligence (MI) and senior police officers but the government had insisted that officers from only one agency would be included in the JIT. He added that PAT wanted officers be selected from Khyber Pakhtukhwa but the government did not accept it. The next PAT demand was that till the filing of the JIT report Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif should detach himself from the government but the government was not ready to even talk about this demand, said the spokesman.

“A deadlock persists even today as far as the talks are concerned,” he said.