NA speaker suspends 5 security officials following PTI lawmakers’ controversial arrest from parliament
National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq on Tuesday suspended five security officials for four months, days after PTI lawmakers were arrested from inside the Parliament House.
Just after 3am on Tuesday, plainclothesmen had stormed the Parliament House — disconnecting the power supply and barging into the building’s Services Branch — to whisk away at least 11 PTI legislators.
In light of the subsequent outcry by the PTI in the NA, Sadiq had ordered an immediate and complete investigation into the arrests made within the jurisdiction of the parliament.
According to an “office order” issued by the NA secretariat today, Sergeant-at-Arms (BPS-20) Muhammad Ishfaq Ashraf was suspended “with immediate effect for a period of 120 days”.
“During the period of his suspension, he will be entitled to draw pay and allowances as admissible under the applicable rules,” the order read.
While not specifying the reason for the move, it said the action was taken under rule 5(1) (suspension and leave) of the Civil Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, 2020.
Under the said rule, the appointing authority “may place any civil servant under suspension or send him on leave, against whom proceedings are proposed to be initiated for an initial period” of 120 days at one time.
In a separate note, the suspension orders for Security Assistant Waqas Ahmed (grade-14 official) as well as three junior security assistants (grade-9 officials) — namely Obaidullah, Muhammad Waheed Safdar, and Muhammad Haroon, respectively — were issued.
The four officials were also placed under suspension for 120 days and “entitled to draw pay and allowances as admissible under the applicable rules”.
On Tuesday, declaring that he would lodge a first information report (FIR) himself if need be, the NA speaker had sought footage from all entry gates of the Parliament House for evidence-based action.
Sadiq also held deliberations with parliamentary leaders and members of the lower house, with Ali Muhammad Khan and Shandana Gulzar of the PTI and PML-N’s Rana Sanaullah among those present during the meeting.
During the meeting, he said there would be no compromise on the dignity and prestige of parliament. It was, therefore, decided to formulate some rules of the game to avoid the recurrence of such incidents in the future.
Later, the speaker had also summoned Islamabad’s Inspector General of Police (IGP) Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi to his chamber to get details of the arrests and ordered him to produce the detained MNAs in parliament.
On Monday night — a day after the PTI held its Sangjani power show — law enforcement agencies swooped in on the PTI’s top leadership, arresting at least three key members from different areas of Islamabad, while forcing others to take shelter in the Parliament House.
By 11pm on Monday, there were confirmed reports about the arrest of firebrand leader Sher Afzal Marwat, Waziristan MNA Zubair Khan, and lawyer Shoaib Shaheen, who was taken into custody from his office in G-9.
At least 11 MNAs arrested included Marwat, Zubair, Chief Whip in NA Malik Amir Dogar, Sheikh Waqqas Akram, Bannu lawmaker Nasim Ali Shah, Zain Qureshi, Ahmed Chattha, Awais Haider Jakhar, Syed Shah Ahad Ali Shah, Yousuf Khattak and Abdul Latif Chitrali.
After being freed by the Islamabad police on Tuesday, PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan clarified that he had surrendered himself for arrest when Marwat was taken into custody.
Special committee of lawmakers formed
A 16-member special committee comprising both the treasury and opposition lawmakers was also constituted to address the matter of the arrests.
Chairing the session later, Sadiq termed the assembly’s atmosphere today as “very good”, noting that politicians across the board spoke “positively”.
“Whether our leadership sits together or not, can we parliamentarians not sign a charter of parliament for the sake of parliament’s betterment?” he asked.
“We should talk about the people and their issues,” he said, calling on lawmakers to not indulge in personal attacks.
Most PTI MNAs to not attend NA sessions till probe held: Gohar
Meanwhile, Gohar announced a boycott of NA proceedings by “all PTI MNAs except nine to ten” as the recent events continued to come under discussion in today’s assembly session.
Speaking on the floor of the National Assembly, Gohar said, “Until an inquiry is conducted into September 10 events and we are satisfied, PTI MNAs, except for nine to 10, will not participate in this parliament’s proceedings. We will not attend your committees’ [meetings].
“This is our protest,” the PTI leader asserted.
“It has come to my knowledge that Bilawal sahib has also tried [to address our concerns] and I thank him for that,” he added.
The PTI chairman clarified: “Under no circumstance would the PTI resign from the parliament or any assembly, nor have we announced as such.”
Regarding the arrests of “10 MNAs”, Gohar called on the NA deputy speaker to not conduct an inquiry that led to the suspension of “some innocent ordinary people but to go to the depth of it”.
During his address, Gohar warned the treasury benches that if PTI’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government wanted, it could also file cases against ministers of the ruling coalition.
However, the PTI MNA said he chose not to engage in “tit-for-tat” actions.
Recalling the suspension of PTI’s Punjab MPAs for 15 sessions, Gohar said he faced “pressure” as the party’s chairman but when a KP lawmaker from the ruling parties “misbehaved”, he chose to not have them suspended in return.
“We want the political forces to be strengthened so that unpolitical forces won’t get a chance,” the PTI chairman said.
‘Both sides must work together’: Bilawal
In his address, PPP Chairman Bilawal-Bhutto Zardari also struck a reconciliatory tone as he called for politics of revenge to be shunned.
“If the government’s only job is to decide who should we jail today as ‘Khan did this to us and ruined the air’ so […] you will be happy for one day but tomorrow, you and I will be in that same jail,” Bilawal said.
“When [Imran] Khan was the prime minister, I had no personal difference with him,” the PPP chairman stated.
“The manner in which we have been doing politics for quite some time, we have turned it into a gaali (swear word),” the Bhutto scion lamented.
Bilawal also criticised the opposition for hurling abuses and “hitting below the belt” instead of giving constructive feedback to the federal government on its economic and security policies.
“If this country has to move forward, both sides must work together. […] It also does not matter that your ‘prime minister’ is jailed. You can fight for his case in jail. Here, serve the public,” the PPP chairman said.
Bilawal further said that since the PPP signed the Charter of Democracy in 2007, “conspiracies started to give space to undemocratic forces and to undermine that charter”.
He went on to claim that one of those was former SC justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and the other was “intelligence agencies’ officers supporting a certain political party which has brought our political system to this point”.
‘Collective damage’: Khawaja Asif
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif clarified that no one was “appreciating” the events that took place Monday night.
“If a precedent has been set here — of the police coming in — then it is a collective loss, it is a loss for this institution collectively and it is a loss for us individually,” he said.
“But the maxim of equity of this is that people who demand equity, their hands should be clean,” he added.
“So, I say when the police came in, it was a collective violation,” he reiterated, adding “but if someone comes in and swears at us, we should condemn him too”.
On the militant attacks in Balochistan and the Katcha area, Asif said that the house must “take cognisance in the future whenever it’s happening — whether in Katcha or Balochistan.
“So that people know if they are in distress, people sitting in parliament are aware of that,” he said.
The early morning incursion into Parliament House
Plainclothesmen stormed the Parliament House just after 3am on Tuesday, disconnecting the power supply and barging into the building’s Services Branch to whisk away PTI legislators.
Sources told Dawn that a well-equipped police contingent, led by Senior Superintendent of Police Operations Arsalan Jahanzeb, had been deployed outside Parliament House for hours before some unmarked vehicles arrived on the scene. This was followed by the disconnection of electricity to the building.
Subsequently, MNAs Zain Qureshi, Amir Dogar, Sheikh Waqqas Akram, and Nasim Ali Shah — along with others — were brought out from Parliament House and handed over to the police for legal action.
Three of the four vehicles subsequently left the premises and the MNAs were bundled into different cars.
After this episode, the power supply was restored and the “under custody” MNAs were brought out of the building through the Cabinet Division gate, where they were “rearrested” by the police. The detained lawmakers were later moved to the Central Investigation Agency Centre.
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