The drama of dead bodies at D-Chowk was the repeat action of Model Town in June 2014. A London plan was hatched in May that year. The participants were Imran Khan, Sheikh Rashid, Chaudary Pervez Elahi, Tahirul Qadri, Altaf Hussain and a MI-6 representative.
It was decided to create a situation at Minhajul Qur’an (madrassa cum residence) of Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) leader Tahirul Qadri, situated in the heart of Lahore, and converted into a no-go area. It had inconvenienced the people of the whole surrounding areas.
The idea was to position a few snipers at vantage points, provoke the assaulting Punjab Police wanting to remove the roadblocks and barriers by firing a few live rounds upon them, and compel the police to fire back.
No sooner were some people hit, they started playing the victim card and started screaming that indiscriminate firing had taken place. 14 dead bodies were shown as a massacre.
First Information Reports (FIRs) were promptly registered against the Chief Minister (CM), Home Minister, Secretary Punjab, Inspector General (IG), District Police Officer (DPO), Senior Superintendent Police (SSP), Superintendent Police (SP), Deputy Superintendent Police (DSP), Punjab Police, the Prime Minister ( PM) and Interior Minister.
It became a motivating factor and a cause to launch the road convoy from Lahore to Islamabad and to stage 126 days sit-in at D-Chowk.
Till today, Model Town tragedy is described tearfully as if it was the biggest state action against the defaulters. No mention is made of the Sahiwal tragedy in 2019, or the massacre of Hazaras in Quetta where the families of the victims refused to bury the dead till the arrival of PM Imran Khan. The latter didn’t go.
Similar efforts are now being made to morph the 26 November event into an international issue. After giving the figure of thousands or hundreds of dead, and then scaling it down to 278, or one hundred, the final figure was 12 which was further reduced to 8.
The whole blame has been treacherously put on the army soldiers, who had been deployed in Islamabad under Article 245, but had remained in the backup support, and had not taken part in any scuffle of the 26 evening operation.
Despite the fact that Pakistan Tehrik-e- Insaf’s (PTI) propaganda has backfired, and it has become a story to belittle the PTI leaders giving different figures of deaths. So far they have failed to produce a single dead body, and their bogus claims are based on hearsay, gossip and telltale.
Instead of providing evidence, fake videos of vehicles full of coffin draped bodies, or photos taken from Gaza and IOK are being circulated.
The only way out left for the PTI is to kill a few PTI workers with bullets and present their dead bodies to substantiate their fake claims.
The final call has ended badly and it has further divided, bruised and weakened PTI. It is reinforcing failure by continuing to flag the dead horse of dead bodies.
Heavy compensations to the next of kin of the imaginary dead have been announced and crocodile tears are being shed over the phantoms.
No tears have been shed or reparations given to hundreds of people who have died in Parachinar and Kurram clashes.
The CM Gandapur instead of visiting the restive areas and trying to pacify the warring tribes and restoring peace, he led the assault from Khyber Pakhtunkhwah on Isbd on 24 November, and made full use of government resources, police, arms, vehicles and heavy machinery and personally supervised the forward march and scaling of road blocks and scuffles with the police enroute.
When the crunch time came near D-Chowk, he and Bushra fled the scene and left the charged-up workers at the mercy of Law and Enforcement Agencies. The ones who had come draped in coffins and had pledged to do and die and not to return without freeing Imran Khan from jail, ran helter-skelter.
Many were nabbed, and among them, there was a heavy contingent of Afghan nationals and Afghans living in Pakistan. A large cache of arms was recovered from them. No PTI leader was arrested from the scene, nor any leader was injured.
The dismal role of the leaders of PTI has made the workers resentful. The leaders are blaming each other. To hide their embarrassment, Aleema Khan announced that his brother Imran Khan still holds the last card, which she told him not to play now and to wait for an opportune time. There is no end to the theatrics of the cult leader, which keeps his subservient cults amused and charged up.
