- Model Town tragedy highlighted
It is a classic instance of an orchestrated cover-up, of protecting the powerful against the weak, of justice not only inordinately delayed but denied. The bloodbath of June 17, 2014 that claimed the lives of 14 Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) workers, including two women, leaving about 100 injured, occurred not in some far- flung backwaters but in upper class Model Town, once a quiet Lahore suburb, but nowadays near the heart of the chaotically expanding city. Shocking scenes were witnessed on television of police personnel firing straight at stone-hurling PAT workers, men, women and children, with a sadistic cold-bloodedness. A one-man Judicial Commission investigated the barbaric massacre, an anti-terrorist court also heard the case, and sundry petitions were filed in Lahore High Court by the grieved families, but no exemplary punishments were meted out which might have assuaged somewhat their unendurable grief. In fact, one directly involved official was conveniently (guiltily?) spirited abroad in January 2015 as Pakistan’s ambassador to World Trade Organisation, others were ‘reshuffled’, while the then IG Punjab Police was not forgotten even in retirement, and posted as Federal Tax Ombudsman in September 2017. Progress in prosecuting the case was not helped by the PAT chief’s seemingly halfhearted approach, breathing fire one moment and winging off to foreign climes on holy duties the next.
A divided (2-1) Lahore High Court decision on Wednesday upholding an anti-terrorism court order to exempt appearance of Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif, Rana Sanaullah and other former ministers for questioning, which the PAT chief termed ‘slaughter of justice’ by shielding the masterminds, and vowing to appeal in the Supreme Court, also galvanised prime minister Imran Khan into action. Aware of his election campaign promise to PAT, a telephonic reassurance Thursday to Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri for ensuring justice was reinforced by instructions to Punjab chief minister to remove all police and administrative officials tainted by the Model Town incident from their present postings, a telling bolt from the blue. The long repressed Justice Najafi report had laid the blame for the tragedy at the Punjab government’s doorstep, and now it is high time for the ends of justice to be sternly served, without fear or favour, for the bereaved families’ sake.