KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement lawmakers on Tuesday protesting against the death of Aftab Hussain, the coordinator of MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar, in Rangers custody converged in front of the Sindh Assembly speaker’s rostrum and chanted slogans against the authorities over “frequent arrests and killing of their party workers”.

Amid the pandemonium, Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani tried in vain to restore order in the house for nearly an hour before finally reading out the order of Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad around 12.15pm to prorogue the session sine die.

The house was earlier felicitated by the speaker on the completion of 100 days of the third parliamentary year. “I congratulate the members who had been attending the session regularly. Our efforts ought to be to maintain traditions of the assembly which has been on the top in legislation throughout Pakistan,” he said.

However, before the speaker could take up the short notice questions from the order of the day, Muttahida Qaumi Movement lawmaker Mohammad Hussain sought his permission to raise his point of order. He was told that he would be given time after the completion of business but he insisted to raise his point. Other MQM legislators also joined him by rising from their seats.

As the speaker tried in vain to give floor to MQM lawmakers Dilawar Qureshi and Heer Soho one after the other to take up their questions, Mr Hussain started recalling their grievances about the arrests and enforced disappearances of MQM activists from different localities of Karachi, Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas.

He said the party workers and elected representatives were being attacked and targeted by the MQM-Haqiqi activists and despite repeated reminders, the government failed to respond and act to mitigate their sufferings. The number of his colleagues picked up from their houses had already crossed one hundred, he said.

Meanwhile, other MQM lawmakers converged in front of the speaker’s rostrum and started chanting slogans “Lathi goli kee sarkar naheen chalegi, Zulm ke zabte, hum naheen mante, Zalimo jawab do, khoon ka hisab do and Jiddojehad jari rahegi”.

The speaker addressing Mr Hussain said his attitude was not appropriate, he would not be allowed to raise his point of order before the questions hour. “Your speech is not part of the proceedings as your mike is not on,” said Mr Durrani.

Amid the uproar, the speaker started calling the number of written questions one by one but MQM lawmaker Aamir Moin Pirzada, who was the mover of the questions, did not come forward. Two other questions, which were asked by Pakistan Muslim League-Functional lawmaker Nusrat Sahar Abbasi, which were answered by Senior Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Nisar Ahmed Khuhro amidst din of slogans while the last question could not be taken up as the MQM lawmaker Bilquees Mukhtar had resigned.

Failing to restore order in the house, the speaker read out the order of the Sindh governor around 12.15pm to prorogue the session.

Speaking to journalists after the session of the Sindh Assembly, Leader of the Opposition Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hassan demanded that a medical board be set up to find out cause of and fix responsibility for the death of Aftab Hussain, the coordinator of MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar, in police custody on Tuesday morning.

“The death in police custody in Karachi is no different from the deaths of Model Town in Lahore and in Sanghar,” said Mr Hassan while warning the authorities that the incident could harm peace in Karachi.

Mr Hassan told the media that the speaker proudly announced the completion of 100 days of the parliamentary year. “But we have nothing to tell our poor people what we have given them during these 100 days. What fruits of the democracy they have. During these 100 days, there had been corruption of over Rs100 billion, over 100 suo motu notices, over 100 cases of corruption filed, over 100 ministers and government officials got bailed from courts, over 100 children died in Thar, over 100 people of Sindh were compelled to sell their children due to poverty and hunger and in Karachi, over 100 persons had been missing.” Yet the Sindh government continued to claim that everything was OK, he said. What was the point in being proud of the 100 days, he asked.

The opposition leader said the question about missing persons had been raised in the assembly but senior minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro expressed his ignorance. The home minister, too, did not like to respond to the issue of arrests of MQM workers, he added.

Mr Hassan said the MQM was grieved over the attitude of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf in particular which did not support the MQM on the issues of arrests of innocent people and missing persons in Karachi.

MQM lawmaker Mohammad Hussain said that during the past three years, there had been arrests of numerous MQM workers, while many of them went missing after being arrested. He said extrajudicial killings were carried out; the held workers of MQM were tortured in prisons, innocent people were attacked in Landhi, Korangi, Malir and Lines Area by MQM-Haqiqi activists but whenever the MQM lawmakers attempted to raise the issues, their voice was gagged. If an opportunity was provided to speak, the government did not pay heed to it, he said, explaining that it was for this reason that the lawmakers had to stage a protest in the house.

He said it was the “Freedom of Press Day” and the MQM tried to exercise their right to know about the whereabouts of their workers but the party lawmakers were not allowed to speak. It was a private members’ day and most of the business on the order of the day was private, yet the MQM lawmakers were not allowed to speak, he said. They were compelled to lodge protest to save the lives of the 160 missing persons, who had not been produced in courts, he said, adding that the MQM would continue to stage sit-ins and protest demonstrations against the ‘enforced disappearances’.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2016