LAHORE: Dr Tahirul Qadri claimed on Sunday that some members of the PML-N as well as ministers were approaching him for a ‘patch-up’ in the Model Town case.

“Kith and kin of the Sharifs have been and are contacting me through various channels for a patch-up in the Model Town tragedy but I have declined to meet anyone unless and until they guaranteed qisas (retribution) for the 14 victims martyred in the police raid on party offices two years ago,” the Pakistan Awami Tehreek chairman told reporters here.

“Not the mother (of Nawaz Sharif) but someone closer than Ishaq Dar,” he said when pressed by newsmen to share the name of those approaching him. Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar is father-in-law of Nawaz Sharif’s daughter Asma Nawaz.

The PAT chief claimed that a federal minister made attempts for three days to meet him in London while he (Dr Qadri) was there the previous month, but he refused.

“The rulers also involved some foreign governments for the purpose but I told their emissaries too about my pre-condition”.

Responding to a question about his appeals to the army chief to seek justice in the Model Town case, Dr Qadri said he had been assured of justice in the case by the army high command for ending PAT’s 2014 Islamabad sit-in and the appeals were in that context. He, however, denied that the guarantee also included resignation of Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Replying to a question about the timing of the PAT and PTI movements, he refuted the suggestion that since 2007 political movements in the country had been launched in the prelude to the change in the army high command. “Our movement has nothing to do with it. I absolutely reject this impression.”

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2016