QUETTA, Jan 31: Four ministers and a legislator walked out of the Balochistan Assembly session on Saturday in protest against the alleged maltreatment of a woman in custody. They demanded a two-day assembly session for debate on the issue and urged the chief minister to raise the issue with President Asif Ali Zardari.

Speaking on a resolution pertaining to installation of TV boosters in remote areas of the province, Irrigation Minister Sardar Aslam Bizenjo said that members of the assembly should have raised the issue of maltreatment of Zarina Marri, instead of debating the booster issue.

He later walked out of the house along with ministers Zahoor Buledi, Amal Kalmati and Mir Saleem Khoso and MPA Mir Zahoor Hussain Khoso.

Speaker Mohammad Aslam Bhootani said that since the chief minister and home minister were not present in the house, the legislators, instead of staging the walkout, should have tabled a resolution or adjournment motion to discuss the issue. “My responsibility is to run the house in accordance with the agenda and rules of business,” he said.

Agriculture Minister Mir Asad Baloch said the house condemned the shameful act, but the walkout was not a solution to the issue. He maintained that in parliamentary politics adoption of a resolution by the assembly was important, but if the authorities concerned did not act on it then it was a different matter.

After adopting the resolution asking the federal government to install boosters in far-flung areas so that people of those areas could watch TV programmes, the chair adjourned the proceedings for 15 minutes and asked ministers Mir Sadiq Umrani and Asad Baloch to persuade the legislators to end the walkout. However, the ministers failed to bring them back to the house.

The house later adopted a resolution seeking a survey of the quake-affected areas and provision of permanent shelters for the survivors without delay. The session was adjourned till Tuesday.

Talking to reporters after the assembly session, Mr Bizenjo said that Ms Zarina was a schoolteacher in Kohlu and had been missing for several months.

He said that the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan had published a report on the missing teacher and one Munir Mengal, who was in custody in a cell with Ms Zarina, had disclosed after his release that she had been molested and tortured.

Sardar Bizenjo, the parliamentary leader of the independent group, said: “We can tolerate torture, oppression and denial of rights, but molestation of a Baloch woman is unacceptable.”

He said the boycott would end only after the matter was discussed in the house and a parliamentary delegation led by Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani met President Zardari and urged him to either release Ms Zarina or produce her before a court of law to prove charges against her.

Talking to reporters, ministers Asad Baloch, Zamarak Khan Piralizai and Ismail Gujar said that walkout or boycott by their colleagues could give them a good space in newspapers but would not resolve the issue.

They said that people of Balochistan were facing a number of serious problems and the victimisation of Ms Zarina was only one of them.

They said the issue should be debated in the house to adopt a resolution against the maltreatment and the matter should be brought to the notice of the president and prime minister to provide justice to the woman and punish the culprits.