Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) of Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri is going to launch its anti-government drive under the title of ‘retribution and accountability movement’ from today (Saturday). Sit-ins will be held in five major cities of the country including Lahore.
According to the schedule, protest marches will be staged in Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Islamabad on Saturday against the Model Town incident in which 14 people were killed and more than one hundred received injuries in a clash between Punjab police and the workers of PAT some two years ago.
PAT chief Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri will not participate in the protest but will address the workers through a video link in all the cities and Lahore’s sit-in will be led by party’s general secretary Khurram Nawaz Gandapur, Pakistan Today has learnt.
PAT chief Dr Qadri has announced the protest movement in a National Consultative Conference on July 31 which was attended by the representatives of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Awami Muslim League (AML), Pakistan Muslim League Q (PML-Q), Sunni Ittehad Council, Mutahida Qaumi Movement, Majlis-e-Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM) and Jamat-e-Islami (JI).
A joint action committee led by Sheikh Rasheed of AML was also formed that day to devise the further strategy. It was decided in the meeting that protest movement of PAT will revolve around the Model Town tragedy and the Panama Leaks in which the family of Prime Minister was directly involved.
Talking to Pakistan Today, PAT general secretary Khurram Nawaz Gandapur said that all the major parties of opposition will participate in our sit-in on Saturday. “Sheikh Rasheed has been given a task to call all opposition parties at one platform in order to exert more pressure on the government,” he said, when asked about the pro-active role of the politician who also enjoy good relations these days with Imran Khan.
According to Gandapur, the protest movement will continue until justice is served in the Model Town case. He said that this is our first series of protests which will end by August 30 with a protest march in Islamabad and the further strategy will be announced on that day, he added.
According to the schedule of phase-I, there will be protest marches in 9 cities on August 16. These marches will be held in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, DG Khan, Sialkot, Sargodha, Sakhar, Larkana and Chiniot. Furthermore, sit-ins will be staged in Peshawar, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Hyderabad, Bahawalpur, Jehlum, Okara and Toba Tek Singh on August 20. There will be protests in Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujrat, Abbotabad and Bhakkar on August 27. Islamabad will be the last venue of first phase of protest when the party will stage a sit-in in the federal capital on August 30, he told Pakistan Today.
PAT Deputy Secretary Information Abdul Hafeez Chaudhry told Pakistan Today that tomorrow’s sit-in time is 2 PM and that it will be staged between Masjid-e-Shuhada to Chairing Cross.
“We do not trust the security of Punjab police, so our own security personnel will be deployed to avoid any untoward incident”, he said.
