The Model Town operation,
more commonly known as the Model Town tragedy or the Lahore massacre ( ur, سانحہ ماڈل ٹاؤن),
or simply Lahore incident, was a violent clash that ensued between the
Punjab Police and
Pakistan Awami Tehreek
The Pakistan Awami Tehreek commonly known as PAT ( ur, پاکستان عوامی تحريک) (''Pakistan People's Movement'') is a political party in Pakistan, founded by Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, took part in general elections in 1990 and 2002. ...
activists on 17 June 2014 resulting in several protesters being killed by the police gunfire. Five police officers remain under arrest.
The standoff lasted for almost 11 hours when the police's anti-encroachment squad launched an operation to remove the barriers from the road leading to the offices of
Minhaj-ul-Quran
Minhaj-ul-Quran International ( ur, ) (or MQI) is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) founded by Shaykh-ul-Islam Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri in 1980 in Lahore, Pakistan. Its headquarters is based in Lahore, Pakistan and has branches ...
and the residence of PAT founder
Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri
Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri ( ur, ; born 19 February 1951) is a Pakistani–Canadian Islamic scholar and former politician who founded Minhaj-ul-Quran International and Pakistan Awami Tehreek.
He was also a professor of international co ...
in
Model Town,
Lahore
Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city ...
, even though police officials were given a court order by PAT leaders, stating "due to terrorism issue place security barriers in front of
Minhaj-ul-Quran
Minhaj-ul-Quran International ( ur, ) (or MQI) is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) founded by Shaykh-ul-Islam Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri in 1980 in Lahore, Pakistan. Its headquarters is based in Lahore, Pakistan and has branches ...
and the residence of PAT founder Dr.Qadri.
The incident was broadcast live on various local news channels
and there were conflicting accounts of how the standoff began.
Police claimed that they were attacked by people inside the PAT secretariat, a claim that is denied by party chief Qadri. In the live footage broadcast on television, the policemen were shown firing assault rifles and lobbing tear gas canisters at the protesting masses while the protesters threw stones at the police.
Qadri strongly condemned the attack and called it the worst form of
state terrorism
State terrorism refers to acts of terrorism which a state conducts against another state or against its own citizens.Martin, 2006: p. 111.
Definition
There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the proper def ...
. Qadri vowed to avenge the deaths of his political workers by bringing about a revolution that would hasten the end of the rule of
prime minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
Nawaz Sharif
Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif (Urdu, Punjabi: ; born 25 December 1949) is a Pakistani businessman and politician who has served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan for three non-consecutive terms. He is the longest-serving prime minister of Pak ...
and his brother
Shahbaz Sharif
Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif (Urdu, Punjabi: , ; born 23 September 1951) is a Pakistani politician and businessman who is currently serving as the 23rd Prime Minister of Pakistan, in office since 11 April 2022. He is the current president of ...
.
Following the incident, Qadri′s importance grew in
Pakistani politics
The Politics of Pakistan () takes place within the framework established by the constitution. The country is a federal parliamentary republic in which provincial governments enjoy a high degree of autonomy and residuary powers. Executive ...
where he had "otherwise been regarded by most observers as posing little threat to the government". Where some analysts considered Qadri a "political non-entity" before the incident,
others expressed concern that the
Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N) government reacted "disproportionately and aggressively" in this matter,
"shooting itself in the foot"
and feeling "'insecure' with the attention that Qadri
admanaged to attract".
Background
On 16 June 2014, the
Pakistan Awami Tehreek
The Pakistan Awami Tehreek commonly known as PAT ( ur, پاکستان عوامی تحريک) (''Pakistan People's Movement'') is a political party in Pakistan, founded by Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, took part in general elections in 1990 and 2002. ...
founder and chief
Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri
Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri ( ur, ; born 19 February 1951) is a Pakistani–Canadian Islamic scholar and former politician who founded Minhaj-ul-Quran International and Pakistan Awami Tehreek.
He was also a professor of international co ...
warned the government of "serious consequences" if anything was to happen to him on his return to Pakistan on 23 June 2014. For some time, Qadri had been amassing the support of political parties in the opposition to form a grand alliance against the incumbent
Nawaz Sharif administration Nawaz may refer to:
Given name
* Nawaz Haq, Pakistani track and field athlete
* Nawaz Sharif, Former Prime Minister of Pakistan
* Muhammad Nawaz, gold medalist, physician
* Mohammad Nawaz (cricketer), Pakistani cricketer
* Mohammad Nawaz (footba ...
. Qadri had successfully rallied for and acquired the support of political stalwarts like
Pakistan Muslim League (Q) president
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain ( pa, ; ur, ; (born 27 January 1940) is a senior Pakistani politician from a Punjabi Jat family of Gujrat who previously served as 16th prime minister of Pakistan. Hussain is the party president of the Pakistan ...
and
Awami Muslim League chief
Sheikh Rasheed in forming a "grand alliance" against the government.
The incident
At around 1am
PKT on 17 June 2014, the Punjab Police launched an anti-encroachment operation to remove barriers outside the offices of
Minhaj-ul-Quran International
Minhaj-ul-Quran International ( ur, ) (or MQI) is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) founded by Shaykh-ul-Islam Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri
Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri ( ur, ; born 19 February 1951) is a Pakistani–Canad ...
and Qadri's residence in the
Model Town suburb in
Lahore
Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city ...
. The police reached the PAT headquarters in a large contingent and demanded the party workers to remove the barricades which they claimed were illegal.
The raid was untimely in contrast to the routine morning raids the police often conducts in similar cases.
The PAT workers insisted that the barricades were legal and that they had been set up four years ago to protect Qadri's home and office when he issued a decree against the
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
.
Nevertheless, the police carried on with their operation to demolish the
Jersey barrier
A Jersey barrier, Jersey wall, or Jersey bump is a modular concrete or plastic barrier employed to separate lanes of traffic. It is designed to minimize vehicle damage in cases of incidental contact while still preventing vehicle crossovers resu ...
s with bulldozers prompting the PAT workers and activists to resist the police efforts by starting a protest against the police action.
London Plan
There are serious concerns of civil society of Pakistan that the whole plot was designed by some ex- government officials though Dr. Qadri and his party denied these charges. The liberal political parties also insisted that the whole event was drafted in London sometimes referred as London Plan.
Live media coverage
After the initial protests, the police retreated for a while, only to return in greater numbers at 5 am. In the meantime, PAT workers had also managed to amass a crowd of supporters and called in the local media. The protesters started pelting the police squad with stones to protest against the removal of barriers. The violent resistance from the protesters led the police to retreat once again. Throughout the ensuing clash, reporters and journalists managed to cover the scenes in live broadcasts aired across various national news channels for the rest of the night and the following day.
Negotiations with PAT
Upon gauging the violent reaction from the protesting crowds,
DCO Muhammad Usman and
DIG Operations Rana Jabbar negotiated with PAT general-secretary Khurram Nawaz Gandapur and chief security officer (CSO) Altaf Shah. Shah was adamant that he and his party workers would not let the police remove the barriers. According to the Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Chaudhry Shafique Ahmad, there were two rounds of negotiations between the party officials and the police where the party workers were asked to remove the hurdles on their own.
When the negotiations failed to bring fruit, the police returned for a third time with a 100-strong squad at 9:30 am to forcefully remove the barriers. They were met with fierce retaliation yet again as the protesters pelted the police.
Violent measures
The police returned for a fourth time at 11:20 am. This time, the force was led in groups commanded by seven-to-eight SPs where some put focus on firing directly into the crowd while others used various tactics to disperse the crowds,
like firing
tear gas
Tear gas, also known as a lachrymator agent or lachrymator (), sometimes colloquially known as "mace" after the early commercial aerosol, is a chemical weapon that stimulates the nerves of the lacrimal gland in the eye to produce tears. In ...
and charging with
batons.
With the police firing weapons directly into the crowd of protesters, 8 protesters (including 2 women one of whom was pregnant) died at the scene while around 80 protesters were gravely injured.
Anarchy
Amidst all the chaos and police brutality, media cameras were able to capture an unknown vandal smashing cars.
It was later identified that the "handlebar-mustached vandal",
Gullu Butt was a known police tout and had been a known activist of the
Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N), the party in government.
Butt brandished a club he used to smash cars and was also heard chanting slogans.
In one footage, Butt was also seen leading the law enforcement officers' charge against the protesters.
Soon afterwards, Model Town
SP Tariq Aziz was seen chatting and hugging Butt.
[
]
Later in an editorial written for the ''
Daily Times'',
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf information secretary
Andleeb Abbas
Andleeb Abbas is a Pakistani politician who has been a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from August 2018 till January 2023.
Political career
She ran for the seat of the Senate of Pakistan as a candidate of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf ...
called Butt a "henchman" of the PML-N government and accused the state police as having "aided, abetted and applauded
he vandalwith absolutely no inhibition for the atrocious crimes that he was committing".
Police claims
The police claimed that the Minhaj-ul-Quran administration had deployed a private militia that was manning the barriers and had effectively converted the residential area into a
no-go area
A "no-go area" or "no-go zone" is a neighborhood or other geographic area where some or all outsiders are either physically prevented from entering or can enter at risk. The term includes exclusion zones, which are areas that are officially kept o ...
. Qadri later said that the number of arrests was understated by the police as more than 200 of his party workers were missing and unaccounted for.
On the complaint of a sub-inspector, the
Faisal Town
Faisal Town (Punjabi, ur, , ''Sharak-e-Faisal'') is a union council and neighborhood of Gulberg Tehsil in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.
Subdivisions
Faisal Town is divided into four residential blocks - A, B, C and D.
Government
Faisal Town i ...
Police later registered a case against more than 3000 PAT workers
under sections 7ATA, 302, 324, 353, 148/149 of the
Pakistan Penal Code
The Pakistan Penal Code (; ), abbreviated as PPC, is a penal code for all offences charged in Pakistan. It was originally prepared by Lord Macaulay with a great consultation in 1860 on the behalf of the Government of India as the Indian Penal ...
.
The police
FIR also formally nominated Hussain Mohiuddin, the son of the PAT chief Qadri, as the main accused.
Formal inquisition
Immediately following the incident, the
Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif
Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif (Urdu, Punjabi: , ; born 23 September 1951) is a Pakistani politician and businessman who is currently serving as the 23rd Prime Minister of Pakistan, in office since 11 April 2022. He is the current president of ...
ordered a judicial inquiry into the events that unfolded on the day. He said he was "saddened over the killings" and would not hesitate to resign if held responsible for the negligence.
He assured that he had already constituted a judicial commission to probe the incident.
Sharif denied any knowledge of the police operation and claimed complete ignorance of the bloodshed. His opponents ridiculed him for not knowing about the incident despite the live broadcast that covered the "bloody episode that continued for hours".
Upon watching the TV footage, Sharif ordered for the immediate arrest of the notorious vandal
Gullu Butt.
Sharif also asked the federal minister for
Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal was to brief the house on the Lahore killings.
Tampering evidence
On 19 June 2014, it was reported that several police officials went to a hospital where the wounded were being treated and altered the medico-legal certificates of injured police officials to show "fake bullet injuries" in order to justify their claim that PAT workers also shot at the police.
Qadri accused the provincial government of tampering with the evidence in the hospital records and denied that his party workers had any arms at all. He also asked the police to produce the confiscated weapons before the media in order to prove their claim.
Qadri rejects judicial commission
The PAT chief Qadri said that the reason for the police action was to "threaten him and his party" before his arrival in Pakistan on 23 June 2014.
He openly rejected the judicial commission and said that the judicial commission could not independently conduct an impartial investigation as long as the PML-N is in government. He expressed concerns that the police may use bribery and scare tactics to coerce false eyewitness accounts in their favour.
Later, while addressing a press conference on 21 June 2014 via video-link from Canada, Qadri urged for an investigation team comprising representatives of the
ISI,
MI and
IB, and a judicial commission of three
supreme court judges to probe the incident.
Rana Sanaullah justifies police action
In justifying the police operation, the
Punjab
Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...
law minister
Rana Sanaullah Khan told the press that "for a person who consistently defies the
constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these princ ...
and the democratic system, Tahir-ul-Qadri had been trying to bulldoze the Pakistani democracy by spreading anarchy". He blamed the religious leader of inciting hatred by asking innocent civilians to take oaths on the Quran to amass against the government.
[
] Tahir-ul-Qadri later vehemently denied such claims and called this justification for the operation as being preposterous.
Rana Sanaullah also justified the operation by claiming that the police were able to identify several armed men and weapons at the Minhaj-ul-Quran offices,
a claim refuted by several PAT officials. After the operation ended, no police official was immediately held responsible for mishandling and criminal negligence.
Ministers removed from posts
In a press conference at the PML-N Central Secretariat in Lahore on 21 June 2014, Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif said that he had decided to remove the Punjab Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Rana Sanaullah Khan (who has been restored by Punjab Government on May 29, 2015) and Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Dr Toqueer Shah from their posts to ensure fair and transparent investigation into the incident.
Reaction of the Opposition parties
Following the incident, major parties in opposition including the
Muttahida Qaumi Movement Muttahida Qaumi Movement (abbreviated MQM) is a name currently claimed by two competing Pakistani political factions:
* Muttahida Qaumi Movement – London, a political faction managed from the UK
* Muttahida Qaumi Movement – Pakistan
Muttah ...
(MQM), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Muslim League (Q; PML-Q) boycotted the
Punjab Assembly in protest.
The
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
strongly condemned the 'lethal force' by the Police and demanded full investigation. "The Pakistani authorities need to explain why police officers found it necessary to fire live ammunition directly into a crowd of protesters throwing rocks," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "There are a lot of dead and wounded people in Lahore today, and no clear reason why."
The
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan ( ur, ) (HRCP) is an independent, democratic non-profit organisation. Founded in 1987, it is one of the oldest human rights organisations in the country.
HRCP is committed to monitoring, protecting a ...
(HRCP) has strongly condemned the police action at the Tahirul Qadri Secretariat.
[HRCP condemns police brutality, loss of life in Lahore action http://hrcp-web.org/hrcpweb/hrcp-condemns-police-brutality-loss-of-life-in-lahore-action/]
*
Pakistan Peoples Party condemned the attack. The
opposition leader
The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the opposition is typically se ...
Syed Khursheed Shah said that the events were a "conspiracy against democracy allegedly hatched by Shahbaz Sharif". He condemned the use of force against Tahir-ul-Qadri's supporters.
*
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf also condemned the attack and the party's central president
Javed Hashmi
Makhdoom Muhammad Javed Hashmi ( ur, مخدوم محمد جاوید ہاشمی; born 1 January 1948), is a Pakistani politician, political realist, and a senior conservative thinker on the platform of Pakistan Muslim League (N).
After serving ...
asked the government to stop the killings of innocent people immediately. PTI's Punjab president Ejaz Chaudhry demanded an apology from
prime minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
Nawaz Sharif
Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif (Urdu, Punjabi: ; born 25 December 1949) is a Pakistani businessman and politician who has served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan for three non-consecutive terms. He is the longest-serving prime minister of Pak ...
and the chief minister Shahbaz Sharif while stating that the "government was responsible for
heincident" and that "there was no justification for such an incident".
*
Muttahida Qaumi Movement Muttahida Qaumi Movement (abbreviated MQM) is a name currently claimed by two competing Pakistani political factions:
* Muttahida Qaumi Movement – London, a political faction managed from the UK
* Muttahida Qaumi Movement – Pakistan
Muttah ...
condemned the police action and announced a day of mourning for the victims. Party leader
Farooq Sattar
Muhammad Farooq Sattar (; born 9 April 1949) is a Pakistani politician who is the founder & former leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, who split it from MQM founder and leader Altaf Hussain, he announced separate faction after rele ...
called the police operation "undemocratic and barbaric". MQM's deputy convener Khalid Maqbool Siddiqi stated that "the protest of the PAT workers was peaceful".
An all parties conference (APC) of political and religious parties except PMLN, PPP, and
Awami National Party (ANP) called by PAT head Dr Qadri on 29 June 2014, condemned the killings and demanded an investigation by Supreme Court's three-member bench. The APC reiterated the demand for Chief Minister's resignation and arrest of the Punjab's to top police officers. The PMLN's central and provincial governments responded to the demands that the investigations are already underway. The federal information minister, Pervez Rasheed, maintained that the parties participating in the APC are trying to "keep their politics alive" as they have no representation in the parliament.
See also
*
Sahiwal killings
*
2010 Abbottabad police killings
*
List of cases of law enforcement brutality in Pakistan
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lahore clash, 2014
2014 in Pakistan
2014 protests
2010s in Lahore
History of Lahore (1947–present)
Pakistan Awami Tehrik
Protests in Pakistan
2014 in Pakistani politics