LAHORE: As the PML-N gove­rn­ment is taking ‘administrative’ measures to curtail the Pakistan Awami Tehreek’s protest plans, the latter’s chief has claimed that the Sharifs are trying to flee the country and have applied for US visas.

The administration erected barricades and placed containers around Model Town, which houses the central offices of PAT and its sister organisation Minhajul Quran, adjacent Faisal Town and a portion of Garden Town. It caused hardship for the residents, including those wishing to visit nearby Jinnah Hospital, one of the city’s main health facilities.

Even PML-Q leaders Chaudhry Shujaat and Pervaiz Elahi and leader of opposition in the Punjab Assembly Mahmoodur Rashid were not allowed to enter Model Town. The Chaudhrys were, however, allowed to go to the PAT offices on foot.

A crackdown on PAT activists has also been launched across Punjab and vehicles, particularly motorcycles, are being impounded. The measures have been taken to prevent PAT workers from attending a Quran Khwani programme scheduled for Aug 10 to pay homage to the victims of the June 17 Model Town incident.

However, hundreds of PAT workers — both men and women — have already made it to Model Town. Women are camping in a small ground facing the PAT chief’s residence, while tents have been erected for men in the main ground outside the offices of Minhajul Quran. Their number is growing day by day as the party is providing them three meals every day.

Talking to reporters, PAT chief Dr Tahirul Qadri alleged that the government had asked the private agency providing him security to withdraw its guards at the earliest. He claimed that Nawaz Sharif and other members of his family were trying to escape from the country and had applied for US visas for their personal attendants and cooks since the Sharifs had already got their own visas.

Copies of a covering letter written to the US embassy on July 15 on the letterhead of MNA Hamza Shahbaz were also distributed among the journalists. Comments and signatures of the embassy officials on the letter have been smudged to protect privacy.

However, the leakage of the letter from the US embassy gives credence to the reservations Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had expressed at a meeting of his close friends the other day that the Americans were also playing a role against the government in the current political crisis.

Dr Qadri claimed the embassy had invited the Sharif family’s staff for interview on Aug 18, but the rulers approached the Foreign Office for an early appointment. He said the UK and Saudi Arabia had already refused to give ‘asylum’ to the Sharifs.

He urged people to reach his Model Town offices so that the Sharifs could not escape accountability and said he would soon announce his next step.

In reply to a question about Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s statement that doors for talks were open, Dr Qadri said he had shut all such doors. He said he did not believe that his movement would lead to imposition of martial law in the country.

Meanwhile, PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat said a civilian martial law had been imposed in Lahore and asked Shahbaz Sharif not to try to name Model Town as ‘Jallianwala’ Town, a reference to the massacre in an Amritsar (India) park by the British in 1919.

He chided the government for registering a case against Dr Qadri under anti-terror laws on charges of inciting people to violence. He recalled that during the PPP tenure Shahbaz Sharif had used even stronger words against the then president by saying he would drag Asif Zardari in the streets and hang him upside down.

Chaudhry Shujaat said Shahbaz had got public properties damaged during protests against loadshedding and in the light of these acts and statements 300 to 400 cases should have been registered against him.

Chaudhry Shujaat said the government itself was creating a situation conducive for the army to take over. In these circumstances, he said, the army would need just two trucks and one jeep.

He predicted that former army chief Pervez Musharraf would soon be allowed to go abroad as the government had retracted its stance on the cases against him.

When told that the army had been summoned to protect important installations, including the Prime Minister and President Houses, he said the army was ‘chowkidar’ (protector) of Pakistan and not of these two houses alone.

Talking to reporters outside Dr Qadri’s residence, Chaudhry Shujaat and Pervaiz Elahi said Nawaz Sharif was “in a great hurry to leave”.

A spokesman for Hamza Shahbaz clarified that visas had been sought because the mother of the PML-N leader was ill and going abroad for treatment.

Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2014