LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry has rejected the caretaker Punjab government’s claim that PTI worker Ali Bilal alias Zille Shah was killed in a road accident, and instead maintained he was tortured to death in police custody.

While addressing a press conference here on Saturday flanked by PTI leader Farrukh Habib and other PTI leaders, the former Federal Information Minister said that they were going to ask the Lahore High Court Chief Justice to form an independent judicial commission to investigate the incident.

He further said they would also ask the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to stop caretaker Punjab Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi from working in the province, as he was distorting the investigation and covering up the murder of their party worker. “The cabinet should be dissolved and a new cabinet should be formed. Till the CM and Inspector General Punjab Usman Anwar remain in their posts, the accountability process against them could not proceed; hence, they should be first removed from their seats.

He claimed that the IG Punjab took all CCTV footage from the Services Hospital in his custody, which amounted to tampering with the evidence. “It was obvious that they took the footage to tamper it and used it against us,” he added.

“The attempt to cover up the murder of Zille Shah was not a new thing; they were trying to cover up an assassination attempt on their party chairman and the murder of journalist Arshad Sharif,” he added.

He pointed out that Section 144 was imposed when the PTI rally was ready and subsequently, the government baton-charged the PTI workers and Ali Bilal was first its victim; later they were taken away on a prisoner van.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023