Amid many trips down memory lane to the late 1970s, the Sindh Assembly on Saturday approved changes in the general sales tax (GST) on services act and unanimously passed it into a law.
Recalling the events of the late 70s, the senior PPP lawmakers spoke on the events leading to the ‘judicial murder’ of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and afterwards.
Speaking on a resolution to pay homage to the PPP founding father on his 84th birth anniversary, PPP’s parliamentary leader in Sindh Assembly Pir Mazharul Haq said that Bhutto’s case was the only precedent in which the accused was handed capital punishment on the basis of the statement of a Sultani Gawah (state witness).
“In the fake case our martyred leader was implicated in, the state witness Masood Mehmood was arrested on July 5, 1977 and kept in custody for five long months,” Pir recalled. “Then a stenographer was called to draft Mehmood’s statements against Bhutto.”
“He wrote what they asked him to… to save his life. And what else can be expected to come out from a man who has spent five torturous months in the custody of an authority that he declined to name,” the Sindh education minister remarked.
The PPP lawmaker said that as standard practice no court in the world accepts the statement of a witness who has spent over 48 hours in police custody, but back then, the court heard the state witness who had been detailed for five months. “[Mehmood] was tortured and forced to write what ‘they’ wanted him to, and that’s why even today Bhutto’s case is regarded in contravention with judicial codes,” Haq added.
“Bhutto was punished for bringing the divided Muslim world on a common platform,” he said. “He was the one who conceived the Islamic bomb.”
Another PPP legislator, Rafique Engineer, recalled that the PPP leader had told then US secretary of state Henry Kissinger that he was threatened by the “white elephants” and the US diplomat had replied: “I would make an example of you [Bhutto].”
Reading out some emotional quotes from the letters Bhutto had written to his daughter, Benazir, as well as those written by the latter, Shazia Marri quoted Benazir from a letter: “You can imprison a man but not an idea.”
Najma Saeed Chawla, Rasheeda Panhwar and Dr Abdul Sattar Rajpar also spoke on the resolution. The discussion will continue in the next assembly session on Tuesday.
GST ON SERVICES: Earlier, the PPP-dominated provincial legislative house unanimously passed the Sindh Sales Tax on Services (Amendment) Bill, 2011 into law.
Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)’s Sardar Ahmed was appreciative of the Sindh Board of Revenue performance, when Sindh Law Minister Ayaz Soomro told the members that the Sindh government had collected Rs 11.5 billion on account of sales tax on services during last six months.
Terming it the success of democracy, Soomro said the provincial tax collectors had also registered some 3,300 tax defaulters, which Sassui Palijo said would further increase.
Ahmed, however, contradicted when PPP’s Humera Alwani claimed that the government had raised Rs 16 billion under the same head. The senior MQM lawmaker said the collection were not more than 6 or 7 billion rupees.
Later, Sindh Information Minister Shazia Marri told journalists that the province was now saving the 2.5 percent collection charges that previously used to be raised by the federal government.
Another government bill, the Establishment of the Office of Ombudsman for the Province of Sindh (Amendment) Bill, 2012 was deferred for an indefinite period on the request of the law minister, who said that coalition partners had some reservations on the legislation.
POINTS OF ORDER: Calls for investigation against those who had ordered action against the protesters from Lyari echoed in the Sindh Assembly with PPP’s Alwani saying that the residents of Lyari also had a right over Bilawal House as they had on Lyari.
“The torture and shelling of protesters was deplorable,” she added.
While the speaker deferred the matter due to the absence of Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Wasan, in a post-session media talk, Marri said “a handful of people” do not constitute the true image of Lyari which has “historically” been the primary focus of her government in terms of development.
Minority lawmaker Saleem Khurshid Khokhar complained that no Question Hour was being held on the issues related to the minorities.
Pakistan Muslim League-Functional’s Nusrat Sehar Abbasi said the government was yet to heed to the problems of the protesting female doctors of the Population Welfare Department.
QUESTION HOUR: During the question and answer session, Sindh Women Development Minister Tauqeer Fatima Bhutto responded to the questions of the house members.
Minutes before the speaker adjourned the house until Tuesday, the assembly adopted a resolution paying rich tributes to Sufi saint and poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai on his 268th birth anniversary.
