PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly met for less than five minutes on Wednesday as the chair put off the sitting until Jan 13 (Monday) due to a lack of quorum.

The session was scheduled for 2pm but began at around 6pm.

However, as the opposition lawmakers pointed out that the house didn’t have the members required for a session, the chair announced adjournment just four minutes and 20 seconds later.

Meanwhile, lawmaker of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Jalal Khan has distanced himself from a resolution adopted by the house against the trial of civilians by military courts.

PML-N member distances himself from resolution against military courts

Both opposition and treasury members passed the resolution, moved by treasury member Abdul Salam, during a session on Tuesday.

The resolution, signed by law minister Aftab Alam Afridi and PML-N lawmaker Jalal Khan, said the provincial government should urge the federal government to “withdraw illegal and partial decision” of a military court about the May 9 violent protests and to investigate riots by higher judiciary to uncover real culprits.”

It added that from a local magistrate to the Supreme Court, a justice system was functioning in the country according to the Constitution.

The resolution said a fair trial was every citizen’s basic right.

“Common citizens were sentenced through military courts. Political workers’ and common citizens’ trial and sentencing are not only against [principles of] justice but it also deprived citizens and political workers of basic rights.

This house strongly condemns partial and unjust decisions of the military courts that gravely violate human rights,” it said.

PML-N MPA Jalal Khan later formally requested Speaker Babar Salim Swati to remove his signature from the resolution.

“I humbly request the withdrawal of my signature from the resolution presented by Mr Abdul Salam concerning military courts as the signature was appended to the resolution by mistake while I was in the process of signing documents related to other assembly business,” the lawmaker insisted in the letter to the speaker.

He noted that at the time of the signing of the resolution, he was unaware of its contents and that his name was inadvertently added to it.

“I would like to clarify that I did not support the resolution and had no intention of endorsing it. In light of this, I kindly request that my name be removed from the list of signatories,” he said.

Mr Jalal said that he didn’t support the resolution.

However, the PML-N member, in a video message, claimed that his signature on the resolution was “fake”.

“I don’t support the resolution and my signature on it is fake,” he said.

MPA Abdul Salam contradicted the assertion and insisted that the opposition lawmaker’s signature on the resolution was real.

“I asked him [Jalal Khan] to sign the resolution, but honestly, he did not read the content. That may be his mistake, but I still say his signature on it is real,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 2nd, 2025