ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq on Tuesday ordered an inquiry into the allegations levelled by Opposition Leader Omar Ayub Khan about the presence of the “personnel of the intelligence agencies in the uniform of assembly’s security officials” inside the house during the proceedings related to the 26th Constitutional Amendment bill aimed at bringing drastic changes to the judicial system.

“The honourable speaker has already passed instructions for the inquiry,” announced Deputy Speaker Ghulam Mustafa Shah when Mr Khan raised the matter for a second time after Maghrib break on the private members’ day.

Speaking on a point of order in the presence of Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, the opposition leader earlier alleged the intelligence agencies personnel were present inside the assembly hall as well as in the precincts of the Parliament House and that they escorted the “abducted” PTI members to ensure their vote in support of the constitutional amendments.

He asked the speaker to inquire the matter through CCTV camera footage, claiming that these officials had come to parliament in double-cabin vehicles which were seen entering Gate No 5.

Mr Khan also presented some photos with his signature as evidence when the speaker interrupted him to assert “it is not possible”. Amid slogans of “shame, shame”, he showed a picture of a uniformed security official, stating that his identity should be verified.

Omar Ayub asks chair to ensure CCTV footage of two days is ‘safe’

“I never say anything unfounded,” he said, demanding that the matter be investigated through an independent committee that should also include the sergeant-at-arms.

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“Check with your sergeant-at-arms or assign someone else and check the CCTV cameras,” said Mr Khan, alleging that the personnel were also present in the house during the Saturday’s sitting. He said the PTI dissidents had been made to sit on the treasury benches at a place from where they were not visible to the press gallery.

“Intrusion of intelligence agencies and other agencies will further derail and weaken this house and democracy,” Mr Khan said, adding that wrong traditions of “securing votes on gunpoint” were being set.

Footage

The opposition leader claimed that a number of treasury members had been given the task to bring the PTI dissidents to the house. He said he watched a video clip showing a “scuffle between the officials of the intelligence agencies with some media persons”.

He asked the chair to issue the directives to ensure that the CCTV footage of past two days was not “scrubbed or erased.”

Responding to Mr Khan, the speaker said he would show him the pictures of all the security officials, who were present in the house on Sunday.

About the lawmakers, he said he could not control the members if a few of them chose to sit on the other side. He said nothing could be hidden from the eyes of journalists as the press gallery was packed on Sunday.

A couple of times, the house witnessed rumpus when Information Minister Attaullah Tarar and ruling party MNA Hanif Abbasi in their speeches targeted PTI’s founding chairman Imran Khan and castigated the opposition party for not voting on the bill.

Later, two PTI MNAs — Sher Afzal Marwat and Zartaj Gul — also lambasted the government over the way it bulldozed the constitutional amendment, alleging that the opposition members were not only “kidnapped and tortured”, but some were also “bribed”.

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The two lawmakers accused their defecting colleagues of voting “under duress or as a result of some bargains”.

Mr Marwat said the PML-N’s motive for the legislation was to ensure its five-year rule by making the judiciary subservient to parliament, stating that the three senior most judges of the Supreme Court would never annoy the prime minister in the hope of becoming chief justice.

He said the “new judicial system” introduced by the government would be disastrous for the judiciary, which ranked 138 in the international index.

He also slammed ex-CJPs Iftikhar Chau­dhry, Saqib Nisar, Asif Saeed Khosa and Abdul Hameed Dogar for bringing bad repute to the judiciary and placed incumbent CJP Qazi Faiz Isa and the one who resigned Umar Ata Bandial in the same category.

“We need independent judges and not favourite judges,” Mr Marwat said.

PTI’s parliamentary leader Zartaj Gul decried her alleged abduction in her Dera Ghazi Khan constituency, saying that she was “dragged” from her house and her face was covered like terrorists.

She said there had been criticism in the international media over the constitution amendment bill.

Mr Tarar refuted the opposition’s allegations of forced polling and said the constitutional amendments were not done in haste, rather it took “two and a half months”.

He claimed that two clauses of the amendment draft were removed on PTI’s demand. He said the four members who supported the bill were independents and cast their votes as per their will.

He alleged that the PTI was facing “internal conflicts”, claiming that the party had been “disintegrated into four groups”.

Meanwhile, the house passed two bills after suspending the rules to carry out the government agenda through a supplementary order of the day.

Resolutions

The house also passed five resolutions, including the one asking the government to “take immediate steps in order to devise and provide media literacy training in schools and colleges for countering fake news on social and electronic media.”

The members also passed resolutions urging the government to “take immediate steps to control overbilling by Discos” and to “condemn the incessant Israeli brutal killings of innocent women and children in Gaza and its recent deadly attacks in Lebanon.”

The NA will meet again on Wednesday (today) at 11am.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2024