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| January 17, 2007 | Wednesday | Zilhaj 26, 1427 |
Woman MNA to get security guard
ISLAMABAD, Jan 16: Ruling Pakistan Muslim League member of parliament and chairperson of the National Assembly’s standing committee on population welfare Gul-i-Farkhanda will be provided an armed security guard during her stay in the parliament lodges.
Informed sources told Dawn that the orders to provide her a security guard had been issued by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
Ms Farkhanda had written a letter to the prime minister narrating the tale of harassment she had been undergoing for months at the parliament lodges, after the fresh incident of theft in her lounge.
When contacted, Ms Farkhanda said she had also lodged an FIR with the police.
She said some people broke into her lodge at night in her absence between January 11 and 12 and ransacked everything. She said she found an iron chain affixed with the ceiling fan and sofa cushions stabbed with a dagger. She said the intention was clearly to kill her. “It was a clear message from them that they were able to physically eliminate me,” she remarked.
The MNA said the unknown persons also took away her camera, visiting cards and letterheads and feared they might misuse them. She said she was supposed to reach Islamabad on the evening of January 11 to attend a meeting convened by the prime minister but could not get a seat from Karachi. She said the MNAs living in the adjacent lodges told her that they heard some noise from her lodge at about 2.30am on January 12.
She said she had no enmity with anyone and had no idea why all this had happened.
Farkhanda, who is known as a vocal supporter of President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, said “It seems that I have become target of some vendetta due to the bold stand taken by me on various issues in support of the government.”
She said it was the responsibility of any government to provide fullest possible protection to the parliamentarians. She said the security arrangements at the lodges were inadequate, and underlined the need to beef them up to provide security of life and honour to the parliamentarians, particularly women.
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