Ruling party can dissolve assemblies if situation calls for it: Khawaja Asif

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif has said that the ruling parties can always dissolve the assemblies as a situation arises that makes it inevitable.

He added while talking on a local TV talk show, that it will be a political move if it so happens.  Khawaja further said that Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are not in a position to dissolve their assemblies.

He said this while responding to the increasing calls for resignations from political opponents, the latest being demands for the resignation of the Chief Minister Punjab Shehbaz Sharif.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) Chief Tahirul Qadri on Thursday joined hands to ask for Shehbaz’s resignation after the Model Town inquiry report surfaced.

The foreign minister said that “people of the same flock” are now joining hands and are trying to do something that can only be done with the election. In reference to Zardari’s dance moves at a rally, he said that the PPP co-chairman destroyed PPP and is now rejoicing the death of the party envisioned by its founders.

The Punjab government on Tuesday evening released the Model Town enquiry tribunal report, which blames the provincial government, including Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, and police for the 2014 incident in which 14 supporters of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) were killed.

Justice Baqar Najafi’s report was released after three years following a Lahore High Court (LHC) directive to make it available for public consumption. The facts and circumstances of the bloodbath clearly show that the police officers actively participated in the massacre.

According to the report, “the actions of police of firing and severely beating the people on the crime scene is irrefutably suggestive that the police did exactly for which they were sent and gathered over there. The operation planned and designed under the chairmanship of the then law minister resulted in gruesome killings could have easily been avoided.”

It is pertinent to mention here that 14 supporters of Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) Dr Tahirul Qadri were killed and several wounded when a police crackdown to clear roadblocks around the headquarters of Idara Minhajul Quran (IMQ) in Lahore’s Model Town went awry and led to clashes on June 17, 2014.