Qadri returns, sets defiant tone

Opposition leader blames Sharifs for killing of party workers by police

Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Dr Tahirul Qadri returned to the country yesterday after a seven-month stay abroad, vowing to resume his struggle for justice following the killing of his party’s workers by police last year.

“We will continue the campaign until the real culprits behind the June 2014 massacre of our workers are brought to justice,” he said while addressing a large gathering of PAT workers outside his Model Town residence in Lahore, capital of Punjab province.

Recalling that 14 workers were killed and around 100 injured in last year’s Model Town police firing, Qadri blamed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab, for the tragedy.

Punjab investigation

“The plot to kill PAT workers was conceived at the PM House in Islamabad and its implementation was assigned to Shahbaz Sharif,” said the firebrand Islamic scholar, who is also a Canadian citizen.

Rejecting an investigation held by the Punjab government into the Model Town incident, Qadri said action similar to the ongoing crackdown on crime in Karachi by paramilitary Rangers should be taken in Lahore. “We shall cooperate with an impartial and transparent probe in the Model Town incident,” said the founder of Minhajul Quran international Islamic organisation.

The PAT leader also said the federal government and the government of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, were responsible for well over a thousand heatwave deaths in that region amid power outages and shortage of water.

“Both governments should have resigned,” Qadri said, adding that there was no example in the world of a government remaining in saddle in such a situation.

Qadri had left Pakistan for United States last year on December 3 for medical reasons. He said he was “still sick and weak.”