LAHORE, April 27: The government should implement proposals put forward by Parliamentary Committee on Balochistan and take its report as a starting point instead of launching new initiatives, says PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, he said the committee’s report had been praised by human rights bodies and civil society organisations.

Chaudhry Shujaat, who was accompanied by party’s secretary-general Mushahid Hussain, denied reports that he was under any pressure from the presidency to quit the post of party chief.

He said a lot of effort had gone into the report and a lot of adverse developments had been taking place in Balochistan, but the PML-Q did not want to exploit the situation and it wanted to offer “its good work”.

He also presented a fact-sheet on Balochistan, which carried details about his party’s work during 2004-2005.

Mushahid Hussain reminded the ruling coalition of pre-election promise of freeing Dr A.Q. Khan and electing him as president and its promise of bringing food prices down and reinstating judges within 30 days. He said: “It seems to be failing on all fronts. It must now concede that it was just … emotional sloganeering and apologise to the nation.”

He criticised the sacking of foreign secretary for differing with the official policy of involving the United Nations in the probe into Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, and said that he would submit a call-attention notice on the matter in the Senate.

He said that if the sacking of the chief justice was inappropriate, the removal of the foreign secretary was also condemnable. The party would take up the issue at all forums.

Chaudhry Shujaat defended his party’s government and said that in order to appreciate its performance people should recall the overall situation in 2002. “An improvement of more than 200 to 400 per cent should be visible in all sectors.”

He said that 58-2B was to be used only if democracy did not work, adding that the PML-Q had not yet decided to support the ruling coalition’s move to withdraw the power of the president to dissolve assemblies. He said that his party wanted the ruling coalition, which claimed to have secured people’s mandate, to complete its constitutional tenure.

About the judicial crisis, he said the issue could now be resolved only by political means because it had become ‘too politicised’. The ruling coalition should resolve it soon and get on with the governance. If it failed to resolve the issue in the next few days, the PML-Q would submit a resolution in parliament, calling for its early resolution.

The ‘fact-sheet’ on Balochistan stated that the Parliamentary Committee on Balochistan formed on Sept 23, 2004, on the initiative of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain who was the prime minister at that time, decided to constitute two sub-committees – one headed by Senator Mushahid Hussain to make recommendations on the … situation in Balochistan and the other headed by Senator Wasim Sajjad to suggest ways and means to promote inter-provincial harmony.

“Within … 90 days, Mushahid Hussain’s sub-committee completed its report, which was unanimously drafted by … three members from the PML-Q and three from the opposition: Senators Mushahid Hussain, Syed Dilawar Abbas, Saeed Ahmed Hashmi, Prof Khurshid Ahmad, Mohammad Aslam Buledi and Raza Mohammad Raza.”

The fact-sheet stated that it had made 37 recommendations and some of them had been implemented while others still remained to be applied.

“ The sub-committee of Senator Wasim Sajjad … received recommendations from all political parties about … provincial autonomy.” But it failed to achieve a consensus because of differences on the issue.

The committee’s recommendations, the fact-sheet said, had focused on giving rights to the provinces.