KARACHI, Nov 18: Complete chaos prevailed during the brief session of the City Council on Saturday as opposition members repeatedly interrupted the proceedings and refused to heed the chair to facilitate the house business by maintaining calm.

Naib Nazim Ms Nasreen Jalil was presiding over the session as convenor.

At the outset, leader of the opposition in the house Saeed Ghani and several other colleagues, including Rafiq Ahmed, stood and sought permission to speak on their three resolutions on the ban on pillion riding as the matter was urgent and of utmost importance considering citizens were facing a great deal of trouble.

They pointed out that highhandedness on the part of the police, who were using the ban as a pretext to subject people to excesses, had been causing unrest among the public.

They claimed more than 1,000 people had already been sent to jail for violating the ban and argued that nowhere in a civilised society, were people sent behind the bars on such petty issues. They said that the police were implementing the ban only to mint money.

The treasury benches contended that since the matter was pending a verdict by a court of law, the house should not debate the issue. Rejecting the opposition’s claims and allegations in this regard, Masood Mehmood said that the ban had been imposed to check growing incidents of street crime. He argued that it was not an interim arrangement that could be withdrawn with an improvement in the situation.

Mr Mehmood was backed by another treasury member, Imran Khan, who urged the chair not to allow debate on the opposition’s resolutions on the subject and, instead, let the house take up the day’s agenda.

Their attitude invited furious reaction from opposition members who started raising slogans against the ban, demanding its immediate withdrawal.

Several opposition members started speaking insisting that their resolutions be taken up out of turn. They interrupted Mr Mehmood’s speech repeatedly and sometime he was inaudible to the audience.

Ms Jalil tried to pacify the situation by asking the opposition to let her first choose the resolution for initiating the debate since all the three were identical. She went on to say that she wanted to seek the views of city nazim on the issue.

The agitating members, however, did not listen and continued to raise slogans. During the rumpus, they staged a token walkout accusing the chair of being partial. While returning, the opposition members continued to chant slogans against the ban and the treasury benches.

The convenor criticised their attitude and reminded them that she had always been stressing that the house should not be turned into a political forum by resorting to slogan-mongering and bickering over political issues.

While the opposition members continued with the noisy protest, the treasury benches also responded in the same manner, which led to a complete chaos and disorder in the house. Members from both sides exchanged hot words and the tension mounted.

The chair, after failing to restore order, adjourned the proceedings for 15 minutes but, to the surprise of opposition members, when the house reassembled, the session was adjourned for a week. It will meet now on November 25. The day’s proceedings had commenced at 3pm and lasted less than an hour.

Earlier, the house adopted a resolution congratulating chairmen of all house committees on preparing departmental reports timely.

Talking to newsmen after the session was adjourned, Saeed Ghani and Rafiq Ahmed criticised the convenor’s attitude and repeated their allegation that she was partial.

They also criticised treasury members for resisting a debate on their resolutions thus ignoring the immense hardship being caused to citizens due to the ban on pillion riding and excesses being meted out to innocent people.

Rejecting the government’s justification for the imposition of the ban, they said street crime had nothing to do with pillion riding.