KARACHI, April 27: Members of the City Council on Saturday staged a walkout to lodge their protest against not allowing one of their colleagues, facing a murder trial, to attend the House proceedings.

Faizanullah, Nazim of Union Council-7 (Gulberg Town), is currently in jail custody. He was arrested after being nominated in the killing of of two activists of Muttahida Qaumi Movement in February.

As soon as the proceedings of the House began with the recitation of Quranic verses, a number of council members stood up and started raising slogans against police for not allowing Faizanullah to attend the proceedings.

Expressing solidarity with the protesting members, Siddiq Rathore fetched the mike and said that on the one hand, police had not brought the Nazim to the house and, on

the other, they had failed to recover the car of the council’s senior presiding officer even after a lapse of 14 days. The car had been taken away at gunpoint from Gulshan-i-Iqbal’s Block 4.