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| 22 June 2004 | Tuesday | 03 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425 |
Govt accused of bias in handling violence
ISLAMABAD, June 21: Opposition parties interrupted the budget debate in the National Assembly on Monday to complain of what they called a discriminatory attitude of state organs in dealing with recent acts of violence in Karachi that targeted government and opposition personalities.
But Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat denied the charge from the ARD and the MMA that the government seemed more active to track down those who had attacked Karachi corps commander's convoy but did little to find the assassins of PPP's Sindh information secretary Munawar Suharwardy and Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai.
"No lenience has been shown in the past and no lenience will be shown in the future," he told the lower house. ARD chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim asked what the government had done to arrest the killers of Mr Suharwardy whose death on Thursday had sparked protests inside and outside parliament.
Mr Fahim, who also heads the PPP-Parliamentarians, said the government had demonstrated urgency in arresting the suspected attackers of the corps commander's convoy. But, he said, no such concern was shown over Mr Suharwardy's killing. He accused the government of following double standards even in cases of law and order.
MMA acting president Qazi Hussain Ahmed and deputy parliamentary leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmed said similar apathy had been shown about the murder of Mufti Shamzai and 12 other people killed during the May 12 by-elections in Karachi.
The MMA chief said that police had ignored the versions of the bereaved families while registering the FIRs about the May 12 killings.
WAGE AWARD: In another interruption of the budget debate, Information and Broadcasting Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed reiterated that he would take to the cabinet a recently passed house resolution that called for the implementation of the seventh wage award for newspaper employees and linking the issue of government advertisements to newspapers with such implementation.
He said he had discussed the matter with President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali, adding that he would inform the house about the cabinet decision.
The minister supported a proposal by MMA leader Liaquat Baloch that Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain should set up a 12-member house committee to hold talks with newspaper managements and unions.
He called the ongoing advertisements campaign by newspapers against the wage award as an insult to the assembly. But the proposal was opposed by PPP's Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed, who said there was no need for such a committee after a Supreme Court decision in the matter.
He asked the government to go ahead with the implementation of the house resolution. The speaker said he would consider whether such a committee was needed or not.
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