Islamabad shootout drama and the brave effort of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)’s Zamurad Khan to handle the armed individual remained a hot debate in the Punjab Assembly on Friday.
A PPP Opposition Lawmaker paid tribute to Zamurad over his bravery but criticised Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan for remaining absent from the scene. Remarks against Nisar infuriated the treasury benches, resulting in Law Minister Rana Sanaullah terming Zamurad’s attempt a “drama”.
PPP Lawmaker Faiza Malik on a point of order requested the Speaker to give her a chance to appreciate the bravery of Zamurad against terrorism but the Speaker ruled out the request and turned off her mike.
In spite of that she continued with her point of view and said that Zamurad had performed a courageous act against Thursday’s episode of terrorism by Sikandar Hayyat in Islamabad’s high alert security zone.
Malik urged the House to pay tribute to Zamurad for his bravery and courageousness against the terror act of Sikandar especially when the Interior Minister was absent from the scene and the security forces were seen failing in bringing the nation out of the six-hour-long tragic drama.
When, Malik took the name of Nisar, the females from the treasury benches started to hue and cry and the Sanaullah stood on a point of order to speak on the issue. The Speaker did not initially allow him saying he had already ruled out any talk on the issue but later surrendered by allowing Sanaullah to speak.
Sanaullah termed the daring act of Zamurad against the gunman as foolish because he could have easily been shot by the armed individual, and the result could have been a national tragedy.
However, he said that the interior ministry was holding an inquiry into the matter, especially on the securtity concerns related to the issue.
Friday’s assembly session, under the chair of Speaker Rana Mohammad Iqbal Khan, began one hour and 15 minutes later than its scheduled time of 9am.
Soon after, the Speaker announced to commence the question hour related to the Industries department and Shafique answered different questions related to mills, the environment and energy issues.
STEEL MILLS: During the session, Treasury’s Mian Naseer and the opposition’s Dr Wasim Akhtar asked the minister to inform the House about the steel mill locations, usage of tyres in the furnaces, environmental issues related burning tyres in factories and the usage of tyres for the production of energy.
Replying to these queries, the minister told the House that the Punjab’s Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N) government had recently completed a survey of the existing factories and industries across the province and in the city of Lahore.
Shafique informed the House that according to the fresh survey report, a total of 17,857 industrial units and 410 steel mills were running in Punjab and a summary of it had been sent to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif for his approval.
He said that after the approval, the industries existing in residential areas would be shifted to other locations. He also confirmed that the government had served notices to 267 mills in Lahore to shift to the Sunder Industrial Estate and he was sure that they would be able to so, within next four months.
Talking about energy issue, especially focusing on burning tyres in furnaces of different factories, Shafique said that they had already held some surveys to produce energy to overcome the electricity load shedding but there were some environmental issues so they had now handed over the matter to the environmental department for an expert analysis.
During the question hour, he also informed the House that his government would constitute training schools under the TAVTA at tehsil level and were also planning to setup these institutes in every tehsil of the province.
In the session, three adjournment motions were moved by treasury and opposition members including Mian Mohammad Rafique, Amjad Ali Javed and Siddiq Khan which were related to the lack of snake bite vaccinations ,several viral diseases in flood-hit areas as well the targeted operation of district government against street vendors in Toba Tek Singh.
Later, the Speaker started a general debate on the report of the 2010 Punjab Pension Fund. Sanaullah delivered the opening speech on the issue but the opposition members informed the Speaker that they were not provided copies of the report so it should be adjourned for some other day. The speaker accepted the opposition’s demand, adjourned the debate and ordered to provide copies of the said report to all the members. Later, he adjourned the session till Monday at 3pm.
