Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri asks Shahbaz Sharif to resign after Model Town carnage

PAT chief Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri has said that Revolution Day would be the last and deciding battle and he would soon announce a date for it. He stated categorically that there would be no dialogue, and no agreement with anyone, adding that only revolution would be the be-all and end-all of the final round of his struggle.

Speaking to Imran Khan, anchorperson of Express News weekly programme ‘Takrar’, Dr Qadri said that the last long march was for the purpose of electoral reforms, which was to be concluded by talks and an agreement, adding that it is a different matter that the then government backtracked on the agreement. He made it clear that his fight was not for probe into four constituencies or electoral reforms, rather it was a fight for elimination of poverty of 180 million people.

Replying to a question regarding Model Town incident, Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri said that the responsibility of the cowardly attack and killing of PAT workers rested on the shoulders of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. He said that as long as the Chief Minister remained in power and the police officials who were involved in the incident held their positions, fair investigation was not possible and resultantly no justice would be done. He demanded that the Chief Minister should immediately resign.

Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri further stated that he and his party rejected the Judicial Commission, adding that the Commission was not authorized to fix responsibility for killings. He said that the Punjab government, through a notification, changed the terms of reference for the Commission and restricted its mandate. He said that only the chief executive of the province could order state terrorism at such a scale. He said that the police officials who had been apprehended were not even among the accused.

Referring to cases being filed by the government against his person and MQI, Dr Qadri said daringly that even if the rulers bent over backwards, they would still fail to prove anything against him or his organization. He stated categorically that we were not afraid of any investigation by the government and gave a damn to any such effort. He said that if they probed him, they would also have to be answerable for the accounts of Raiwind palace spread over 4000-acres. He said that these politicians had set up business empires throughout the world with the money looted from Pakistan.