Najafi report on Model Town massacre be made public, LHC orders Punjab govt

A full bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday ordered the Punjab government to make the report of a judicial inquiry, known as Justice Baqar Najafi’s report, into the 2014 Model Town incident public within 30 days. Pro-Saudi and ASWJ-allied Punjab government was accused of ordering massacre of Sunni party’s supporters.

The three-judge bench, headed by Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh, dismissed three appeals filed by the Punjab government against the release of the report and ordered it to provide a copy to the families of the affectees. The ongoing trial of a similar case in an Anti-Terrorism Court will not be affected by Justice Baqar Najafi’s report, the bench ruled.
The Punjab government argued that since the report was of a sensitive nature, it must not be made available to the public. The government’s counsel Advocate Khawaja Harris said that the findings in terrorism cases are kept under wraps due to the same reason all over the world.
The prosecution, in its response, said that Punjab government’s refusal to release the report is an obstruction of justice. Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) lawyer Barrister Ali Zafar said that the government was providing cover to the perpetrators of the Model Town incident, adding that the victims’ families wanted to know who ordered the police to use violence against them.
Subsequently, the bench ordered that the report be made public within 30 days.
On June 17, 2014, as many as 14 people were killed and 100 others injured when police attacked the residence of PAT chief Dr Tahirul Qadri in Model Town during an ‘anti-encroachment’ operation.
The Najafi report
The judicial commission, formed in 2014 to investigate the Model Town incident, had held the government responsible for it, saying that the police acted on government’s orders which led to the bloodshed.
The report said that the affidavits of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah contained contradictions regarding the orders they reportedly issued to police to disengage, and declared that what happened on the ground did not match their claims.
Contents of the report, which the government had deemed secret, were first revealed by an anchor of a private television channel and were confirmed to Dawn by independent sources.
According to the report, Sharif claimed in his affidavit that he had ordered police to disengage in Model Town. However, the chief minister had not mentioned this in the press conference that he addressed after the fiasco.
“It seems the word ‘disengagement’ was an afterthought to save the chief minister,” the sources had quoted the report as saying.
According to the sources, the report said the action in Model Town was taken under the orders of the government and that the police were responsible for it.
Responding to the revelations, a Punjab government spokesman had said that the report of the judicial tribunal was received and examined. It was observed that it required further analysis as it was inconclusive.