ISLAMABAD, April 28: The opposition launched a fresh assault on the government over law and order and how it runs parliament at the start of a National Assembly session on Friday, but the treasury benches responded with apparent unconcern.
With most government benches in the house being empty, the most serious attack was directed at the ruling coalition partner Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which was accused by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) of being responsible for an attack a fortnight ago on a religious rally in Karachi that killed nearly 50 people.
There was no government response to the charge made by Liaquat Baloch, who also demanded an inquiry headed by the Supreme Court chief justice, after MQM’s parliamentary leader Farooq Sattar dismissed insinuations made earlier about his party by other opposition members as “MQM-phobia” or “Altaf Hussain-phobia”
While Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao was on a visit to Turkey, his new deputy, Minister of State for Interior Zafar Iqbal Warraich, was also not seen around when a mini-debate on the April 13 attack on the Eid Miladun Nabi rally at Karachi’s Nishtar Park raged before the house was adjourned until 10am on Saturday.
The government also did not respond to criticism from PML-N’s parliamentary leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who said he had not seen “such a confused and powerless assembly” in 22 years of his parliamentary career.
Ministerial absences were conspicuous in the wake of the reshuffle and expansion of the federal cabinet only four days ago.
“Our view is that there is no hand other than the MQM behind the Karachi tragedy,” Liaqat Baloch said apparently following instructions of alliance’s chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who sat just before him in the front row and had earlier demanded the appointment of a neutral governor and a neutral home minister in Sindh province to replace MQM incumbents.
But Mr Baloch said the MMA wanted to “take forward” a proposal by Mr Sattar to pick up opposition personalities like Mr Amin Fahim, chief of the People’s Party Parliamentarians, and former MMA senator Prof Ghafoor Ahmed as guarantors to improve the Karachi situation.
PML-N’s Nisar Ali Khan took the government to task for the absence of most ministers from the house on, non-adherence to schedules for assembly sessions and new security measures taken to check entry of people, including parliament members, into the parliament premises, and said: “The whole world knows the decisions are made not here ... but in the GHQ (army General Headquarters).”
He said a government policy against taking points raised in the National Assembly seriously had finished the credibility of the house which, he added was also not taken into confidence about a recent decision for joint patrolling of the Pakistan-Afghan border by Pakistani and US troops.
Mr Khan said bonnets and boots of assembly members’ cars were searched at the gate of the parliament house on Friday after passing through the usual zig-zag obstructions and mirror screening in what seemed to be tightened security checks for entries to the premises.
“We will not come to the assembly if such security measures are introduced,” he said and added: “It is better the person for whom this has been done does not come here.”
There was no immediate explanation whether the new security measures, which included a new speed bump in front of the gate, were taken in normal course or in preparation for possible visits by President Pervez Musharraf for whom there is a special chamber in the parliament house.
