LAHORE: Dr Tahirul Qadri alleges that the federal government is “clandestinely” going to amend the Criminal Penal Code (CrPC) in a bid to save the Sharifs from a private complaint of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek pertaining June 2014 Model Town killings.

At a press conference here on Thursday, the PAT chairman claimed draft of the amendments to the CrPC was finalised at house number 180-H, Model Town (PML-N secretariat) on Tuesday (Aug 2) after two-week-long secret deliberations duly joined by representatives of the federal law ministry and Punjab law department.

The draft, he said, had been sent to the National Assembly secretariat for amending the law, robbing the judiciary of its powers to hear private complaints in murder cases.

The proposed amendment would empower the station house officer (SHO) of the relevant police station to decide whether a private complaint in a murder case qualified to be heard by a judicial officer or not, he added.

The proposed changes would amend sections 22-A & B, 154, 190, 200-204 of the CrPC dealing with private complaints.

Dr Qadri warned that if passed the amended law would deny the last chance of seeking justice in case a complainant was not satisfied with the prosecution by police.

He said that he was cautioning the institutions related with national security, bar councils as well as general public (so that the government could be stopped from taking the step before it’s too late).

When asked about his source of information, the PAT chief said at least (secret) agencies were not his source.

Answering a question about the anti-government campaign of opposition parties, including the PAT, he said the month of August would be the “warm-up round” and claimed the government would be no more before the end of the “third round”. He, however, refused to identify timings and venues of the second and third rounds, saying a final decision in this regard would be taken in the summit meeting of the opposition parties.

He, however, cautioned Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that he would not be allowed to become Tayyap Erdogan (of Turkey) because Mr Erdogan had not been “discovered” by any Gen Ghulam Jilani, a reference to Mr Sharif’s appointment as Punjab finance minister in the cabinet of then governor Jilani in 1983.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2016