LAHORE: The steering committee formed in the recently held Multi-Parties Conference (MPC) convened by the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) of Dr Tahirul Qadri, will hold an emergency meeting in Lahore on Thursday (January 4) to discuss future options if the Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Law Minister Rana Sanauallah did not submit their resignations by January 7.
According to details, a steering committee was formed in the MPC on December 30 last week in which a deadline of January 7 was given to the Punjab government to accept the resignations of both Shehbaz and Sana. To discuss this important issue, the steering committee would meet in Lahore to review the progress on their demand and to weigh the options if the two powerful personalities in questions refused to resign by the given deadline.
The 18-member steering committee included, PAT Secretary General Khurram Nawaz Gandapur, Mian Manzoor Wattoo, Qamar Zaman Kaira and Sardar Latif Khosa of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Jahangir Tareen, Shafqat Mahmood and Aleem Khan of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Senator Kamil Ali Agha and Chaudhry Zaheerud Din of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), Sheikh Rasheed of Awami Muslim League (AML), Nasir Sherazi of Majlis-e-Wahdat ul Muslimeen, Raza Haroon of Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), Sardar Ateeq Ahmed Khan of Muslim Conference, Sahibzada Hamid Raza of Sunni Ittehad Council, Liaqat Baloch of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Syed Ihsan Shah of Balochistan National Party-Awami (BNP-A), Allama Safdar Ali Shah of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and Jamshed Dasti of Awami Raj Party.
Moreover, Khurram Nawaz Gandapur of PAT, Manzoor Wattoo of PPP and Jahangir Tareen of PTI would work as the coordinators of the steering committee that would contemplate different options regarding launching a protest movement if Rana Sana and Shehbaz Shairf refused to resign by January 7.
In the MPC that was attended by 40 political and religious parties on December 30, a 10-point unanimous resolution was also passed in which the chief justice of Pakistan was also requested to take suo moto notice of the tragic Model Town incident of 2014 in which 14 people were killed while over a 100 got injured.
The MPC also held Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz Sharif, Rana Sana and some powerful bureaucrats of the Punjab government responsible for the Model Town incident and termed their actions as an extension of state terrorism. The Multi-Parties Conference also demanded that those responsible for the change in Khatm-e-Nabuwwat affidavit must also be booked under the law as it was a deliberate attempt.
Meanwhile, PAT secretary general said that Nawaz Sharif was the looter of national wealth and killer of innocent people. He further said that there was no difference in the language being used by both Nawaz Sharif and the United States (US) President Donald Trump, adding that the timing of their verbal assault on state institutions in Pakistan matched perfectly.
It is worth mentioning here that religious scholar and custodian of Sial Sharif shrine Pir Hameedud Din Sialvi had also threatened to lead a long march from Data Darbar in Lahore on January 9 if Rana Sana did not resign from his post over his ‘controversial’ remarks about the Ahmadi community in Pakistan.