Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri to return home according to schedule: PAT Executive Council

The meeting of PAT Executive Council took place under the chairmanship of PAT President Dr Raheeq Abbasi in the central secretariat on October 28. Addressing the meeting, the PAT President said that PAT chief Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri would return home as per schedule and protest rallies would start on his return. He said that the resolution adopted by Punjab Assembly against peaceful protest was against Article 15 and 16 of the Constitution. The meeting also demanded of the government to withdraw hike in power tariff and control power outages during the holy month of Muharram. The meeting was attended by PAT Secretary General Khurram Gandapur, Bashrat Aziz Jaspal and Sheikh Zahid Fayyaz among others.

The Executive Council also took serious notice of the arrests of PAT workers and asked the Punjab police to release the workers at the earliest. It also expressed its concern on the fact that investigation into Model Town incident had not been initiated as yet despite passage of so many months.

Dr Raheeq Abbasi said that the government was not ready to learn from its mistakes. He said that the arrests and intimidation of PAT workers continued which should be stopped forthwith. He said that the legislators of the ruling party had also grown fed up with their leadership because of the PML-N’s anti-Constitution, anti-democracy and anti-people stance and policies. He said that PML-N was facing internal dissention. He said that there would be changed political scenario after the holy month of Muharram.

Speaking in the meeting, Khurram Nawaz Gandapur said that the government was wasting its energies on non-issues instead of focusing on governance. He said that anti-protest resolution adopted by the Punjab assembly was unconstitutional. He said that the Constitution gave every citizen a right to peaceful assembly and protest. He asked what kind of democracy it was where the floor of Parliament was used to promote and project personal enmity instead of public good. PAT Secretary General said that the growth rate in Punjab was 3% while the annual rate of increase in incidence of diseases was 7%.

The meeting strongly condemned fake police encounters and termed it as an outright lawlessness. The council also noted that human rights were being violated in Punjab at the governmental level and demanded of judiciary to take notice of these violations.