ISLAMABAD, April 13: The government on Thursday rejected opposition charges of security lapses as political rivals pointed accusing fingers at each other during a National Assembly debate on Tuesday’s killer bombing in Karachi.
Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said evidence so far showed the attack on a religious rally at Karachi’s Nishtar Park was the work of a suicide bomber rather than a remote-controlled detonation as thought by members of the opposition Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) alliance.
Winding up a marathon debate, in which more than 30 members from the opposition and the ruling coalition took part, he said adequate measures were taken for the rally held by Sunni Tehrik to celebrate Eid Milad-un-Nabi to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and assured the house that the government would spare no effort to track down and punish the culprits.
Most MMA members who spoke accused what one of them called “a linguistic organisation” for being behind the Tuesday evening attack during Maghreb prayers and called for the immediate removal of the Sindh Governor Ishrat-ul-Ibad and Home Minister Rauf Siddiqi to ensure an impartial inquiry.
The MQM members rejected the charges against their party and, in a reference to hardline components of the MMA, said the carnage could have been motivated by ideological differences with moderate Sunni groups and carried out by a suicide bombing similar to those being staged by Al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Mr Sherpao, who returned earlier on Thursday after a visit to Karachi with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Ejaz-ul-Haq, said all necessary security measures, including a screening of the stage where the explosion wiped out the Sunni Tehrik leadership, were taken for the Karachi rally in consultation with organisers and rescue operations after the incident were also prompt.
“Talk of negligence by the government is totally wrong,” he said as he gave an account of what transpired at a meeting the prime minister held in Karachi on Wednesday evening with Sindh government functionaries and federal and provincial security agencies.
The minister also dismissed opposition charges of possible responsibility of security agencies in the bombing and said the government instead wanted peace and harmony in the country.
“Which government can afford the negative fallout of such an incident?” he asked.
Mr Sherpao said since the blast caused no crater on the ground, which would have been the case if a bomb had been planted there, and the stage of the meeting was found intact, it appeared certain to be a suicide bombing by somebody who had strapped the explosive with his body.
Pellets found in the bodies of the dead and injured could have been released by such a device and the head of a man found from the spot but not identified or claimed by anybody is thought to be of the suicide bomber, the minister said.
Mr Sherpao said he and Mr Ejaz-ul-Haq also met Sunni Tehrik leaders in the early hours of Thursday and told them that those responsible would be brought to justice.
He also assured the house that President Pervez Musharraf, the prime minister and “we are taking personal interest in this case and said: “We will not disappoint the people so that nobody could dare to do the same thing in the future.”
FAZL CAUTIOUS: While most other MMA members, including those from Karachi — Sahibzada Abul Khair Mohammad Zubair, Mohammad Hussain Mehanti, Asadullah Bhutto and Qari Gul Rehman — directed their attacks against the MQM and government agencies, opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman was more cautious in hurling blames.
In a brief speech, the opposition leader questioned the justification of government functionaries calling the bombing a suicide attack before an inquiry was held and said this might be an attempt by the authorities to escape any blame on them or part of what he called “a US and western agenda” to malign religious parties.
“The government and government agencies should revert from this initial impression,” he said.
The MQM fight-back was led by Syed Haider Abbas Rizvi who rejected terrorism charges against his party as based on “personal” and old rivalry said some groups wanted to make the country’s financial capital Karachi as a base after their “fronts in Kashmir and Afghanistan became cold”.
If the MQM was a terrorist organisation why leaders of every government party came to (MQM headquarters) 90 to kowtow to Altaf Hussain?, he asked referring to parties that sought MQM support to form governments after the 1988 elections.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) called for a cooling of tempers and proposed an all-parties parliamentary delegation to go to Karachi to condole with the bereaved families, an all-party committee to investigate the incident, and a review of the working of government agencies and anti-terrorism courts while “law and order has completely broken down”.
Several other members of his party also criticised the government’s performance but avoided taking sides between the MMA and the MQM.
Khwaja Saad Rafiq of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, who was brought from a jail in Lahore to attend the session after a production order issued by Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain, saw the Karachi incident an attempt to provoke a Shia-Sunni confrontation and asked the government to talk to people who believed in parliamentary democracy and allow former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto to return home.
Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf chief Imran Khan said he had been told by Sunni Tehrik leaders some months ago that their workers were being killed while the Sindh government protected the killers. He called for a review of the government’s role in the so-called war on terrorism with the aim of putting the interests of nation first rather than those of President Musharraf.
A pro-MMA member from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Maulana Merajuddin, used the debate to denounce what he called “murder” of tribesmen “day and night” in the name of war on terrorism.
The house was later adjourned until 9:30am on Friday when it is due to begin an opposition-sought debate on high prices of essential commodities such as sugar, cooking oil, petroleum products and cement.
