The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday has ordered the government to submit a response by September 12 regarding a petition filed for the release of a judicial inquiry report conducted by Justice Ali Baqar Najafi into the killings of Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT)’s workers in 2014.
The petition has been filed by the families of victims killed in Model Town massacre which killed 14 people and injured 100 others during police action.
The court has also asked the government to clarify why the judicial inquiry report has not yet been made public.
PAT chief Tahirul Qadri in one of his public address demanded that the Justice Najfi Commission report on the Model Town incident be made public, asking why the Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif was afraid publishing the report if he wasn’t involved in the killings.
Qadri claimed that Shahbaz Sharif had been declared responsible for the incident by the report and that was the reason why he hadn’t made it public even after three years.
Report cannot be made public:
Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanullah, however, talking to a private news channel recently, said that the case is still being heard by the court and the report cannot be made public till then.
If the court deems fit it can make the report public, he added.
He claimed that Qadri’s own lawyers had refused the commission earlier but now he wanted to use the incident for political mileage.