LAHORE: A full bench of the Lahore High Court on Thursday extended an exemption granted to former inspector general of Punjab police Mushtaq Sukhera from appearing before an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) hearing the Model Town killings case. The bench postponed further hearing in Mr Sukhera’s petition till January 29 as the Pakistan Awam-e-Tehreek (PAT) counsel did not appear in the court on Wednesday. ATC judge Muhammad Azam had summoned 127 persons including IG, DIG Operations, and former DCO Lahore. The judge had ordered the accused to appear in person and deposit surety bonds of Rs500,000 each. Petitioner Mushtaq Sukhera’s counsel had submitted that on private complaint of PAT, the ATC had issued summons. He alleged that the summons were issued on baseless information provided to the trial court, as the petitioner was not holding the office of IG when the incident happened. He submitted that the petitioner had nothing to do with the incident. He said that the PAT leader had filed a private complaint after 21 months of that incident which was without evidence. He requested to declare these notices as illegal and unconstitutional. On March 3, 2016, the PAT and Minhajul Quran leaders had filed a private complaint seeking trial of ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif, federal ministers Saad Rafique and Khawaja Asif and others accusing them of the ‘murder of innocent PAT workers in June 2014. The trial court had partially accepted PAT’s plea and summoned Sukhera and others. The court had dismissed PAT’s plea seeking trial of the ex-PM, CM, Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah and eight other MNAs. Published in Daily Times, January 11th 2018.