Demand for NA session
The opposition across the board is getting round to forcing the hand of the government to call for a session of the National Assembly to discuss threadbare the deadly sectarian riots in Rawalpindi on the Ashura that sparked a series of tit-for-tat attacks elsewhere too – more particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa. In protest there have been processions in Sindh, and by the Defence of Pakistan Council, Tehrik-e Ahle-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) and the Wafaqul Madaris. Instead of kindling fires of protest in the streets in an already charged situation owing to terrorist threats being made by the TTP, it would be a whole lot better if the issue is taken up in the National Assembly. This was insisted upon quite vociferously by the PTI, and the PPP joined it almost immediately. The opposition leader in NA, PPP’s Syed Khurshid Shah, said the other day that the opposition will submit “a requisition for calling the National Assembly session in case the government failed to do so.”
The government needs to call the NA session for two purposes. First, it has to inform the lower house about the worsening sectarian situation all over the country. Second, it should share with all members the government policy on how it plans to stay on top of the issue, eventually bringing it under control. It is most disheartening to see that even after almost a week of the Ashura incident, the government machinery seems nowhere near pinpointing the perpetrators, let alone nabbing them. A failure of the sorts sends a negative signal about the capabilities of the security and intelligence agencies. If the incident was pre-planned, as the opposition leader has suggested it to be, this is more of a breakdown in intelligence gathering than anything else. But if the incident was not pre-planned, then the district administration and law enforcement agencies were neither ready nor capable of handling the situation, and casts aspersions on the government’s ability to provide security to the people in the country.
As the government, like most governments around the world do, is stalling inquiry, the opposition is spot on in calling for an NA session to discuss the issue. As political contours of the issue outweigh its religious ones, it is only appropriate that it is discussed at the right forum, NA in this case, though taking all stakeholders, including the ulema, in confidence would be a good start to resolve the issue.