Nisar wants open joint session of parliament

Calling for accountability of some individuals in order to save the institutions and expressing serious concerns over the terrorist attack on Mehran naval aviation base in Karachi, National Assembly Opposition Leader Nisar Ali Khan demanded on Wednesday that the government summon an “open joint sitting of parliament” to affix responsibility. “This time the joint sitting of parliament should be open and the PML-N (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz) will not attend any in-camera session,” Nisar told select reporters in an informal setting.
Nisar said the country was burning and the rulers were playing a shameful game and their callousness and indifference to the country’s interest was reflected by the fact that President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani were not taking time out of their foreign trips. “The defence minister is missing since the May 2 incident while the president, who is supreme commander of the armed forces, has also not issued a statement about the country’s security, protection and defence,” he said.
He demanded the government to take parliament into confidence over serious security and intelligence failures in the Karachi incident, as well as progress on the formation of an independent investigation commission to probe the May 2 US raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad. Criticising Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Nisar said Malik had termed the security agencies’ reaction to the terror attack on the naval base “a great success”. “Was it a great success that a few terrorists killed 10 of our soldiers and injured 18 others and destroyed aircraft worth billions of rupees and most of the terrorists succeeded in escaping comfortably?” he questioned, adding that the naval base was surrounded by armed personnel of five forces.
He condemned the fact that even after the passage of 48 hours, it was yet to be ascertained whether there were four, six or 16 terrorists involved in the incident. The opposition leader also took strong exception to the contents of a statement of the navy chief, in which he had stated that there was no security lapse at the naval base. Calling for accountability of some individuals, Nisar said that accountability of individuals was imperative to save institutions. He warned that if the government continued behaving and responding in this way, the opposition would show a strong reaction to incidents such as the one in Karachi during the budget session.
He said it was fact that the rulers of the country were more concerned about returning the tail of the US helicopter destroyed in the Abbottabad raid.