Central President of PAT, Dr Raheeq Ahmad Abbasi, has said that we reject Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which has been constituted with the sole aim of giving a clean chit to Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif. He said that the government took the unilateral decision to form JIT without taking PAT into confidence. He said that we have not been contacted in this regard and lies are being constantly churned out. He said that we would not accept JIT whose head does not have PAT’s blessings and which does not have representation of ISI and MI. He said that we had rejected the name of Abdur Razzaq Cheema, adding how could police, which is killer itself, conduct investigation into the tragedy?

Dr Abbasi said that the government had earlier formed JIT too, which was rejected by the people. He said that we wanted the kind of JIT which enjoys trust and confidence of heirs of martyrs and PAT. He said that the Punjab government is staging a façade in the name of forming JIT, adding that we would not let it hush the matter of 14 martyrs’ blood under the carpet. He said that despite our demand, the government did not include representatives of intelligence agencies in JIT. He said that we have demanded of the government to appoint a head of JIT from neutral province of KPK.

The PAT President said that the present JIT has been established to absolve Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif of their responsibility in Model Town incident. He said that we would not accept investigation of JIT. He said that we had given names of three police officers from KPK, which were not accepted. He revealed that the government proposed the name of DIG Karachi Shahid Hayat, which we also accepted but the government withdrew his name later on. He declared it unequivocally that we would not appear by the government’s JIT, nor will we present evidence nor cooperate with it. He said that our homes have been attacked and our people have been killed. He said that we would not let anyone hold unfair and partisan probe. He announced that as long as JIT enjoying support of PAT is not formed, we would not cooperate with it. He asked if the rulers have no role in the incident and nothing to hide in the matter, why are they running away from constitution of a neutral JIT to investigate June 17 killings?