LAHORE - A leading secret service of the country has advised their masters not to detain PAT chief Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri as such a step may lead to civil disobedience-like situation, it is reliably learnt.
Political circles privy to the information of the assessment of a prime secret service concerning Qadri said on Sunday that men in power should avoid nabbing the PAT chief in indirect cases and knock him down only when they get real and solid information to defuse his revolution.
They revealed that some of the ruling party’s advisers had advised their bosses the other day to detain Dr Qadri, but no decision could be made till the filing of this report.
Political circles confirmed that some of the experienced advisers, endorsing the secret service assessment, advised the top ruling elite to avoid detaining Dr Qadri without getting some solid information to bring him down.
Citing another part, they said the authorities concerned should give some space to Dr Qadri to observe whatever day he likes in a bid to defuse a little bit of the anger of his followers and to buy sometime to deal with him in another way.
However, the campaign to criminalise the PAT chief and his top aides for inciting his followers to challenge the writ of the state should continue in an effort to highlight seditious side of his character, they said. They added the ruling party was also advised to engage PAT politically and make efforts to defuse the PAT issue through political means, involving veteran political figures.
With all these suggestions, the law and order situation should be dealt with, avoiding excessive use of force.
Meanwhile, according to them, the intelligence agency is gathering fresh information to get complete data of the PAT strength in Punjab as the earlier data collected by the provincial intelligence service was found either inaccurate or insufficient after the episodes of clashes of Dr Qadri’s followers with police across the province.
Quoting the report of the intelligence agency, political circles said the administrative machinery, following the information of political wing of the provincial intelligence department about Dr Qadri’s followers, were not anticipating a serious backlash as a result of use of force against PAT.
The secret service will also make fresh efforts to gather information concerning all aspects of Dr Qadri and his family, besides his top aides.
Political circles quoted the secret service officials as saying that they have some ‘plants’ inside PAT and Minhaj-ul-Quran and they would try to make good use of their assets inside Dr Qadri’s circle to avert a major unpleasant incident.