ISLAMABAD, Aug 1: The opposition is considering to requisition a Senate session to discuss "worsening" law and order situation with reference to the suicide attack on Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz and the issue of the killing of two Pakistanis in Iraq, sources told Dawn on Sunday.

The sources said signatures of the opposition members, belonging to the Democratic Alliance, were being obtained so that the requisition notice could be submitted at the earliest.

They said a majority of the members had already signed the requisition notice while some senators of the nationalist parties of the NWFP and Balochistan were not available in Islamabad.

Signatures of at least 25 members are required to requisition the session of the Upper House. The sources said that the opposition was not planning to requisition the National Assembly session as the government itself was convening it after the Aug 18 by-elections in Attock and Tharparkar.

After the submission of the requisition notice, the National Assembly speaker and the Senate chairman are bound to summon the session within 14 days. The parliamentary secretary of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), Izhar Amrohvi, when contacted confirmed that signatures were being obtained to requisition the Senate session.

However, he said the Democratic Alliance had 22 members in the Upper House and it would have to seek the support of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) for requisitioning the session.

Mr Amrohvi said they required only three more members to sign the notice and hopefully the MMA leaders would support the move because of the importance of the issues.

He said the opposition wanted to highlight the worsening law and order situation after the terrorist attacks on Mr Aziz, President Gen Pervez Musharraf and the Karachi corps commander besides killings of PPP leaders Munawwar Suharwardy, Abdullah Murad Baloch, PML-N leader Pir Binyamin Rizvi and religious scholar Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai.