By Muhammad Luqman
Pakistani-Canadian cleric and Chairman of Pakistan Awami Tehreek, Dr. Tahirul Qadri has announced that the widows and daughters of the 2014 Model Town clashes victims would stage a sit-in on Lahore’s Mall Road on August 16.
“We have been demanding justice for three years and the families of the victims can’t wait much longer,” Qadri told a news conference in Pakistan’s eastern city, Lahore on Friday.
“We request that a unbiased bench of the Lahore High Court is formed in the first week after Eid-ul-Azha for the hearing of the petition pending with the court,” he added.
The PAT chief maintained that the decision to stage a rally was made by the families themselves. He added that the participants of the rally would be women only but he would be there to express solidarity with them.
He pointed out that an Elite Force vehicle had run over a 12-year-old boy at the former PM Nawaz Sharif’s homecoming rally, but the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leaders had not even bothered to condole with his family.
Fourteen PAT supporters were killed and dozens wounded when the police mounted an operation to remove barriers from a road leading to the PAT offices and Qadri’s residence in Lahore’s Model Town on June 17, 2014,
Dr. Tahirul Qadri has already led two protest marches to Islamabad—in January 2013 and August 2014.