Member of the Upper House on Friday adopted a unanimous resolution demanding trial of former president and military chief Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf under Article 6 for abrogating the constitution.
The fourth sitting of the 92nd Senate session opened under the chairmanship of Senator Nayyar Hussain Bukhari.
The House unanimously adopted a resolution calling upon authorities to try the former military ruler under Article 6.
The resolution also demanded that all photographs, posters and banners of the former president be removed from all government buildings with immediate effect.
PML-N Senator Ishaq Dar moved the resolution on behalf of all members, demanding the government to remove portraits of Musharraf from all public buildings.
The resolution also demanded that the resolution passed by the House on January 23 last year regarding arrest of Pervez Musharraf should also be clubbed with this resolution.
At the onset of the session‚ the members expressed annoyance over the absence of the interior minister because he was summoned by the chairman to appear before the House and answer questions regarding law and order.
The chair suspended the proceeding for 15 minutes and asked the interior minister to come in the House, whereas on the resumption of the session‚ the House was informed that the interior minister was in a meeting with the prime minister.
As a protest over the absence, all members staged a token walk out.
Speaking on the Musharraf issue later‚ caretaker federal minister for interior told the House that Musharraf had been taken into custody and shifted to judicial lock up, adding that Musharraf’s residence had been declared a sub-jail.
The minister said he was cognisant of the entire issue and supervising the process.
Elaborating, he said it was for the first time in the history of the country that a dictator had been arrested and “we have also got two-day remand of Musharraf”.
Speaking on points of order, the members objected to declaring Musharraf’s house sub-jail and demanded he must be brought to book without any favour. They said the responsibility lay on the caretaker government.
The House also resumed discussion on power outages as the issue was raised through an adjournment motion in the previous sitting.
Minister for Water and Power Dr Musadik Malik said 12-hour electricity load-shedding was being conducted in urban areas and 14-hours in rural areas of the country.
Giving his remarks on a motion moved by Tahir Hussain Mashhadi regarding excessive load shedding in the country‚ the minister said no attempt had been made to address the issue of circular debts that had defaulted power generation institutions.
MQM senators also raised the issue of law and order in Karachi, expressing their concern over rise in incidents of targeted killing in the city.
“Karachi portrays that there exists no law enforcement agencies, police or security forces in the city as half a dozen people lose their lives daily without knowing their crime or sin,” Senator Mashhadi said.
The MQM senators also staged a protest walkout from the session to highlight the rising incidents of targeted killings in the city.
The Senate Standing Committee on Defence and Defence Production also presented its report in the House, highlighting the details regarding visit of National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of Iran’s Consultative Assembly and visits to Naval and Air Headquarters.
The house was prorogued later.