PAT releases report on ‘Human Rights and 2014’

LAHORE: The Pakistan Awami Tehreek has issued a report “Human rights and the Year 2014.” This was stated by a PAT spokesman here in Lahore on Friday. The report relates to Human Rights violations in 2014, violence, killings and arrests of political workers. The report said that this was the worst year as from June 17 to 31st August over 25,000 PAT workers faced state violence and kept in illegal confinement. 4000 workers had to face unfounded and false cases and thousands of workers faced the worst kind of torture by the state in 12 jails. Police killed 14 innocent PAT workers in Model Town and left injured over 100 workers.

The spokesman said that to this date no independent investigation has taken place of the Model Town incident. The spokesman said that the so-called democratic rulers are following the policy of ‘insistence of violence and torture and rejecting any offer for talks.’ The report has given in detail the state-sponsored torture and violence incidents and said that the details will be presented before a court of law.

He said that poisonous teargas imported from India was shamelessly used on PAT workers in Islamabad, bullets were fired directly on PAT workers. He said people were killed ruthlessly and police brutality could be seen all over Punjab. He said when due to lack of space in jails PAT workers were kept in police mobiles for over 18 hours and were not provided any food or medical treatment. All sorts of measures were taken to stop journalists from reporting the true picture of police and state brutalities. Cameras were broken and false cases were framed against them. The movement of political workers was restricted thus depriving them of their basic constitutional rights.

The report further said that PAT workers were thrown in jails of Punjab after framing false cases against them. The breakup is in Central Jail Lahore 790, Central Jail Gujranwala 588, Sahiwal 390, District Jail Lahore 321, Sheikhupura 260, Sialkot 404, Rawalpindi 671, Attock 301, Gujrat 435, Jhelum 210, Mandi Bahuddin 137 and Chakwal Jail 88. All these workers faced the worst form of torture and many have been left crippled for life and hundreds are still in hospitals receiving treatment.

The report further revealed that 40 false cases have been registered against the chairman of PAT Dr. Tahirul Qadri and the government has failed to present the challen of the Model Town incident in court which was registered after court orders but was very quick to present the challen which was written on the FIR the government got registered itself. The irony of the facts are that the FIR PAT got registered has not moved a single inch and to date no investigation have been initiated on this FIR.

The PAT report has been prepared under the supervision of advocates Mushtaq Nonari, Anwar Akhtar, Nasir Iqbal, Naeemuddin Ch, Ibrar Raza, M.H. Shaheen and Sardar Ghazanfar. The report said that all kinds of evidence in the shape of videos, documentary, written and audio forms have been collected and will be presented to a court at the appropriate time.