LAHORE: Pakistan Awami Tehreek chief Tahirul Qadri vowed revenge and asked his workers on Monday to wait for his ‘final call for revolution’, capping an eventful journey full of sharp turns and twists and a controversial plane diversion.

“I’ll announce the final date for revolution after political consultations,” the cleric-cum-politician told his followers outside the Minhajul Quran headquarters, where 10 of his workers were shot dead on June 17.

From the airport to the city’s Jinnah Hospital, where PAT workers injured in police action last week were under treatment, to the Minhaj offices, he travelled in a four-wheel drive vehicle provided by ally, former Punjab chief minister and PML-Q leader Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.

Punjab Governor Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar accompanied Dr Qadri from the Lahore airport up to the hospital.

At first the PAT chief refused to leave the plane at Lahore, but after some time he agreed to do so on condition that the army give him security cover

“The control of the revolution,” Dr Qadri made it clear to his workers as well as allies, would remain in his hands.

Dr Qadri, who said he had returned from Canada for good, predicted that the government would be a pushover against his campaign. He said those who were in power would soon be behind bars and elections would be held once the revolution was complete.

At the offices and in the hospital he talked of avenging the deaths of his workers in the June 17 police raid. “I’m here... The blood of the martyrs won’t go waste and we’ll make the cruel rulers pay for it in the form of a green revolution.”

The PAT leader likened the Sharif brothers to Hitler and Mussolini, his voice charged in the wake of the forced diversion of his flight from Islamabad to Lahore. He was scheduled to land in Islamabad in the morning, but in a move that drew widespread criticism, the plane was diverted to the Punjab capital.

Dr Qadri was told to disembark in Lahore, but he refused. At first he insisted that he be sent to his original destination Islamabad and later sought an assurance of security and escort by the army before he came out of the aircraft.

He later agreed to be escorted by the governor, after the airline he was travelling by, the Emirates, showed signs of impatience.

There was talk of possible hijacking charges brought up against Dr Qadri in case he continued to occupy the plane.

While he lauded the governor’s role in resolving the issue at the airport, the PAT leader alleged the Nawaz government had ‘hijacked’ his plane.

The drama came to an end after around six hours after the landing of the airliner at 9.34am.

Raja Zafarul Haq, the PML-N chairman and Leader of the House in Senate, was the other prominent figure among the over 300 passengers.

Dr Qadri said he did not trust police security. He called the police ‘terrorists in disguise’, in a reference to the June 17 incident.

A senior journalist travelling in the plane told a TV channel that almost 150 people accompanying Dr Qadri did not let over 40 other passengers disembark at Lahore airport by blocking the exit, standing in the way in groups of 10.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif monitored the situation throughout the day.

Small groups of workers, a few of them belonging to the PML-Q, continued to turn up at the airport till 1pm.

It wasn’t a large gathering even though the government security allowed the workers in after briefly resisting their advance, initially. Slogans were raised and party songs were played from a loudspeaker-mounted mini-truck parked outside the lounge.

As there was no sign of the army accepting his demand and most of the workers, tired by that time, retired to the ground to take some rest, there came a ‘timely intervention’ by Sindh Governor Ishratul Ibad. He told Dr Qadri that a prolonged stay of activists on roads could result in any mishap. A threat by the Emirates that it would get a hijacking case registered if the plane was not vacated within an hour also had its impact.

Showing flexibility in his demands, the PAT chief said vehicles should be brought to the runway and that he would go under the security cover of his personal guards.

But, he said, he would leave the plane only after holding talks with the Punjab governor.

With the approval of the president and the prime minister, the governor reached the airport at 2.30pm, held a brief round of negotiations with Dr Qadri in the plane and made him disembark.

The PAT leader then contacted Mr Elahi. He reached the airport in 10 minutes, from where the trio went to the Jinnah Hospital for visiting the injured party workers, bringing to an end the melodramatic journey of Dr Qadri.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2014