The Sindh Assembly unanimously passed a resolution on Friday condemning the alleged abduction and manhandling of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) lawmaker Aleemur Rehman on Tuesday. The resolution was jointly moved by the lawmakers of the MQM and the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, including Muzammil Qureshi, Syed Khalid Ahmed, Abdul Moeed Siddiqui and Nusrat Saher Abbasi.
“The house demands the law enforcement agencies to immediately arrest everyone nominated in the first information report, and to shut down their torture cells operating in several parts of the city,” they said. The MQM had accused the Awami National Party (ANP) of kidnapping and harassing its MPA soon after the incident. However, ANP members were not present in the assembly when the resolution was passed.
The ANP was engaged in supervising the strike that the party leadership had called as a protest against the management of the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) for not heeding to the demands of its lower grade employees who have been protesting for a month against their possible dismissal. In the assembly, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)’s Law Minster Ayaz Soomro suggested the MQM several times that the resolution was not needed after MQM’s Health Minister Dr Sagheer Ahmed had talked over the issue in detail.
Assembly Speaker Nisar Ahmed Khuhro had allowed Ahmed to talk over the incident when the latter had raised a point of order. However, MQM members, including the party’s parliamentary leader Syed Sardar Ahmed, insisted that the resolution was necessary. Ahmed went on to threaten the PPP that the MQM members would not participate in the proceedings of the House, including the budget process, if such incidents continue happening and no action is taken against terrorists and their supporters.
The MQM leader also said that the same elements have disturbed the peace of the city by torching vehicles and ransacking properties during strikes. He warned that destabilising Karachi could result in damaging the entire country.
The law minister appeared to be under pressure due to the absence of his senior colleagues in the House, especially parliamentary leader of the PPP Pir Mazharul Haq and leader of the House Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah.
The law minister requested the MQM members to at least defer the matter until Monday so that he could consult his seniors, especially the chief minister. However, he eventually had to surrender after the MQM members continued pressurising him and the speaker. Nevertheless, unanimously adopting the resolution could not prove helpful for the PPP in getting the House to return to its normal proceedings because as soon as the resolution was passed, MQM members demanded the chair to allow a few of their party members to talk on the issue.
MQM members refused to acknowledge the assurances of the law minister that an impartial and fair probe would be ordered into the incident. Khuhro’s repeated requests for convincing the MQM members that talking about a resolution that had already been passed was not necessary also went in vain. The speaker asked the MQM members to give the government some time for fulfilling its promise of conducting the investigation. The health minister told the speaker that they could only accept assurances from him in this regard.
Khuhro assured the minister that the government would look into the matter. However, the MQM members refused to accept his assurances. At this point, around half a dozen MQM MPAs stood up to pressure the chair and the PPP members. In the meantime, around the same number of PPP members also rose from their seats and the House witnessed mayhem with mixed emotional reactions and threatening remarks by all members.
At the end of the day, the speaker adjourned the assembly’s proceedings until Monday, and the House failed to formulate any legislation, including the Sindh Sales Tax on Services Bill-2011, due to the situation.
