Lahore: On Saturday, Punjab Inspector General Dr. Usman Anwar denied claims made by the PTI that the provincial government killed a party worker. He said the incident was an “accident case”. It was unfortunate that some elements misinterpreted it in front of the public, He added.
Ali Bilal, a PTI worker, died on March 8 when the caretaker Punjab government used force to stop a rally. PTI called the rally to start start party’s campaign for the April 30 elections in the province.
On Friday, police said they had caught two suspects named Umar and Jehanzeb. They said that Bilal was hurt in a car accident with their car and had multiple injuries. According to sources, the two said the accident happened at Fortress Stadium.
The people in charge of the party claimed that Police killed and tortured Bilal, while in police custody.
At a press conference today in Lahore, the senior cop and caretaker Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi both said that the provincial government had nothing to do with what happened.
“It’s clear from the evidence that this was an accident. “In this case, none of the suspects tried to kill someone and put the blame on the police,” the IG said.
He said that CCTV footage showed that the suspects “clearly looked tense.”
“At one point, he also tried to save the victim and took him to the hospital,” the senior cop said.
The caretaker CM criticized PTI.
“We’re not stopping you from running for office, but you shouldn’t make false accusations against us,” he told reporters.
Naqvi said that he would have answered the accusations “in a different way” if he hadn’t been in the coveted position. “It’s my job to deal with these kinds of attacks calmly, but threatening to file a first information report with murder charges based on nothing but assumptions is too much.”
“I’m not giving up. I’d rather go home, but I won’t give up,” the CM told reporters.
He also flatly denied that the police were told to torture people who worked for a certain party.
Naqvi said that the IG will visit the father of the victim himself. He also said that, as usual, the Punjab government will help the heirs with money.
“They did me and the police administration a great wrong. “This shouldn’t have happened,” said the head of government for the province.
He said that it was a hard case to solve and praised the Punjab police for trying to find the suspects.
Naqvi said that an audio clip that was going around on social media about the incident didn’t even need to be checked because it was clear that the clip wasn’t true.
He also didn’t like how the PTI decided to hold a rally on the same day that the Aurat March and other marches were happening in the Punjab capital.
