Pakistan Awami Tehreek workers The Model Town operation,[1][2] more commonly known as the Model Town tragedy or the Lahore massacre (Urdu: سانحہ ماڈل ٹاؤن),[3] or simply Lahore incident, was a violent clash that ensued between the Punjab Police and Pakistan Awami Tehreek activists on 17 June 2014 resulting in several protesters being killed by the police gunfire.
For some time, Qadri had been amassing the support of political parties in the opposition to form a grand alliance against the incumbent Nawaz Sharif administration.
[14] At around 1am PKT on 17 June 2014, the Punjab Police launched an anti-encroachment operation to remove barriers outside the offices of Minhaj-ul-Quran International and Qadri's residence in the Model Town suburb in Lahore.
[15] The PAT workers insisted that the barricades were legal and that they had been set up four years ago to protect Qadri's home and office when he issued a decree against the Taliban.
There are serious concerns of civil society of Pakistan that the whole plot was designed by some ex- government officials [16] though Dr. Qadri and his party denied these charges.
Throughout the ensuing clash, reporters and journalists managed to cover the scenes in live broadcasts aired across various national news channels for the rest of the night and the following day.
[6] Upon gauging the violent reaction from the protesting crowds, DCO Muhammad Usman and DIG Operations Rana Jabbar negotiated[18] with PAT general-secretary Khurram Nawaz Gandapur and chief security officer (CSO) Altaf Shah.
[19] It was later identified that the "handlebar-mustached vandal",[19] Gullu Butt was a known police tout and had been a known activist of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N), the party in government.
[22] Later in an editorial written for the Daily Times, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf information secretary Andleeb Abbas called Butt a "henchman" of the PML-N government and accused the state police as having "aided, abetted and applauded [the vandal] with absolutely no inhibition for the atrocious crimes that he was committing".
[25] On the complaint of a sub-inspector, the Faisal Town Police later registered a case against more than 3000 PAT workers[26] under sections 7ATA, 302, 324, 353, 148/149 of the Pakistan Penal Code.
[26] Immediately following the incident, the Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif ordered a judicial inquiry into the events that unfolded on the day.
[25] Later, while addressing a press conference on 21 June 2014 via video-link from Canada, Qadri urged for an investigation team comprising representatives of the ISI, MI and IB, and a judicial commission of three supreme court judges to probe the incident.
[29] In justifying the police operation, the Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah Khan told the press that "for a person who consistently defies the constitution and the democratic system, Tahir-ul-Qadri had been trying to bulldoze the Pakistani democracy by spreading anarchy".
"The Pakistani authorities need to explain why police officers found it necessary to fire live ammunition directly into a crowd of protesters throwing rocks," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.