Imran asks Shehbaz, Sanaullah to step down after Model Town report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Wednesday asked Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Law Minister Rana Sanaullah to step down in the wake of damning Model Town inquiry report.

In a statement on his Twitter account, the PTI chief said: “After the Najafi Report revelations, CM Shehbaz Sharif and Rana Sanaullah should immediately resign for killing Pakistani citizens.”

A day earlier, the provincial government declassified the report of a judicial inquiry carried out by Justice Ali Baqar Najafi of the Lahore High Court into the Model Town incident on the orders of an LHC larger bench.

The report, which was released after three years of the incident in which 14 supporters of Pakistan Awami Tehreek were killed, squares blame particularly on the provincial law minister and the Punjab police for the carnage.

The report maintains that the operation planned and designed under Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah “could have easily been avoided” and that the “police officers actively participated in the massacre”.

“This tribunal has very carefully seen the CD of the first press conference of Chief Minister Punjab after the incident in which he did not specifically mention about his direction of disengagement. It has become crystal clear that order of disengagement was not passed at all, rather position taken by CM Punjab appears to be an afterthought defence not taken before the nation in the press conference,” says the report.

The commission maintained that it arrived at the conclusion after “putting all facts and circumstances in juxtapositions.”