Pakistan Awami Tehrik Chairman Tahir-ul-Qadri has had a jam-packed 24/7 schedule since returning to the country late last month. This has been especially true since the Punjab government publicised Justice Baqar Najafi’s report, compiled after a judicial inquiry into the 2014 Model Town incident, on December 5.
Since Qadri interprets the report as a damning verdict on the Punjab government’s involvement in the Model Town massacre in which 14 PAT workers were killed and 90 were injured, he is demanding the resignations of both Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Law Minister Rana Sanaullah. Political parties have been queueing up to ally themselves with PAT since.
The PAT chairman has already held meetings with leaders of the Majlis-e-Wahdatul Muslimeen, Jamaat-e-Islami and Pak Sarzameen Party. On Wednesday he met former prime minister of Azad Jammu & Kashmir Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan and on Thursday he was scheduled to meet Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan chief Farooq Sattar.
PSP and PAT
Among the first to jump aboard was Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari who vowed to “take to the streets” with Tahir-ul-Qadri, if both Sharif and Sanaullah did not resign. Considering that Qadri had first made himself politically relevant by staging a sit-in in the capital in 2013 to overthrow the Pakistan Peoples Party government, this appeared to be the unlikeliest and the most opportunistic of political alliances.
“But it is not a political alliance,” Qadri says. “The PPP is joining hands with us over the martyrdom of 14 innocent people at the hands of the Punjab government.”
Qadri maintains that Justice Baqar Najafi’s report, “leaves not even the slightest of doubts” over CM Shehbaz Sharif and minister Rana Sanaullah’s involvement and hence anything less than resignations would not be acceptable.
A PTI delegation led by Shah Mehmood Qureshi met Qadri to finalise a strategy. "The strategy is simple: if Shehbaz Sharif and Rana Sanaullah don't resign, we will join the PAT's sit-in," confirms PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry
“The chief minister himself had said on June 17, 2014 that even if a finger were pointed towards him in the case, he would resign. We are just reminding him of his own words,” the PAT chief adds.
Manzoor Wattoo, who was the PPP Punjab president at the time of the Model Town incident, and was with party head Asif Zardari during the meetings with Qadri, says his party had taken up the cause of the victims back in 2014 as well. “It’s not as if the PPP has just woken up to the tragedy,” he says. “We were there at the funeral prayers of the victims as well.”
The PPP leader maintains that the current PPP support to PAT is based purely on humanitarian grounds and a demand for justice. “I personally feel PAT, PML-Q, Majlis-e-Wahdatul Muslimeen, JUI-F and the Sunni Tehreek, along with independent candidates, should form a political alliance in Punjab,” Wattoo says.
One of the parties that Wattoo clearly missed out on naming is PAT’s old ally, the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), which has vowed complete support for Tahir-ul-Qadri as both Sharif and Sanaullah have been given till December 31 to resign from their posts.
On midnight Tuesday, PTI chairman Imran Khan had a long discussion with Qadri on the phone. A couple of days before that, a PTI delegation led by Shah Mehmood Qureshi also met Qadri to finalise a strategy. “The strategy is simple: if Shehbaz Sharif and Rana Sanaullah don’t resign, we will join the PAT’s sit-in,” confirms PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry. When asked how the PTI is reconciling with the PPP now being a part of an alliance, Chaudhry maintains that his party will never be a part of any alliance that involves the PPP.
PTI and PAT
“We are just supporting the PAT and whoever else is allying with them is doing so as a part of a separate alliance. We are not a part of any large group of parties; our support is just for the cause that PAT has taken up,” he says.
Wattoo echoes similar sentiment, saying that it wouldn’t make much sense for the PPP to ally with the PTI, especially in Punjab, considering that it’s the old PPP voters who the PTI has won over.
“Our focus should be on getting those votes back from the PTI, and so our alliances – if any – would be with parties whose voters don’t overlap with ours.”
Even so, just as with the 2014 PTI-PAT dharnas and indeed the Faizabad sit-in last month, there are rumblings that it is the Establishment that is backing these alliances in Punjab.
“The PML-N has a phobia against the Army, and only doctors can cure it,” says Chaudhry. “They are even saying that the Army is behind the Model Town massacre. You can’t help those who don’t ever take responsibility for their actions.”
Qadri also rubbishes the claims, saying that if he wanted anyone’s backing for power he wouldn’t have alienated the Sharif brothers in the first place. “They used to lift me up on their shoulders during trips to Ghaar-e-Hira,” he says. “If I wanted power I would have just joined hands with the Sharif family again.”
