Punjab investigation team to single out anti-PTI govt officers
A huge contingent of police deployed to stop PTI protesters from entering Islamabad during the long march on May 25. PHOTO: ONLINE/FILE
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has decided to form a special investigation team (SIT) in Punjab to single out government officers, who it believes, were involved in a crackdown against PTI activists on May 25 this year.
The province was under PML-N’s Hamza Shahbaz Sharif at the time and the party activists were trying to march on Islamabad from Lahore and other Punjab cities where the government installed barricades and shipping containers on roads to block the march.
The SIT will issue notices to Federal Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and former Punjab Minister Ataullah Tarar, said PTI’s Fawad Chaudhry who headed the PTI meeting in Lahore on Monday.
The decision comes amid a tiff between the PMLN-led federal government and the PTI-controlled PTI government. Sanaullah has announced a probe against PTI over a troll campaign against Pakistan Army martyrs and vowed that it will not allow the PTI to create chaos in Islamabad during the August 13 rally.
After Sanaullah’s warnign the PTI moved the venue of the rally from Islamabad to Lahore.
At the PTI meeting in Lahore, it was decided that the Punjab government will issue a notification of the SIT next week.
The TORs of the team will include identifying officers involved in violence against PTI workers.
The investigation team will also probe the actions of former Deputy Speaker Dost Mohammad Mazari — a renegade PTI leader who was removed as deputy speaker at the end of last month.
It will be seen if Mazari misused his powers on the pretext of a court order, said Fawad.
Sources said Speaker Sibtain Khan will form a committee to proceed against Mazari.
The SIT will likely submit its report within a week.
