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| 10 March 2004 | Wednesday | 18 Muharram 1425 |
Opposition keeps up protest in NA: PPP MNA resigns
ISLAMABAD, March 9: Opposition in the National Assembly kept up its protest against recent incidents of violence in the country and over half of its members walked out of the assembly session on Tuesday before the government agreed to have a comprehensive debate on law and order.
Component parties of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) staged the walkout shortly after the lower house began the second sitting of its spring session, accusing Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain of denying them enough time to speak about the murder of a Sindh MPA belonging to the PPP.
Members of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) also protested against the murder of MPA Abdullah Murad Baloch in Karachi as well the killings of over 40 people in Quetta and 13 near Wana in South Waziristan Agency, but did not join the walkout.
The proposal for a comprehensive debate on law order was put forward by MMA's Secretary-General Maulana Fazlur Rehman after the ARD walkout and was immediately accepted by Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat.
The interior minister said while judicial inquiries into the Karachi murder and the Quetta carnage and an inquiry into the Wana firing by a committee of officials were already under way, the government would welcome suggestions the opposition might make during the law and order debate. No date was set for the debate.
The minister also promised to submit inquiry reports about all these incidents but side-stepped a demand from MMA's acting president Qazi Hussain Ahmed that a committee comprising parliament members from Fata probe the Wana firing instead of an officials' committee, which he said the opposition would not trust.
PPP members carried placards calling for immediate arrest of their MPA's killer and resignation by the Sindh governor as they entered the hall after the assembly began its session one hour behind its schedule. "The situation in entire Sindh is being affected," ARD Chairman and PPP President Makhdoom Amin Fahim said while rising on a point of order.
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