16 April 2005	Saturday	06 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1426

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

ISLAMABAD, April 15: The National Assembly plunged into turmoil on Friday over the planned return of ex-senator Asif Ali Zardari as the government failed to explain opposition charges of mass arrests of members of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) seeking to welcome him in Lahore on Saturday.

Some ruling coalition members joined the opposition in criticizing the reported detention of a PPP woman member of the lower house before an opposition walkout that triggered an early adjournment of the house until Monday for lack of quorum.

Both the federal government and speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain denied knowing details about detentions mainly by the Punjab provincial government, which the PPP says wants to prevent a big welcome for Mr Zardari when he arrives in Lahore after spending some months with his self-exiled wife and party leader Benazir Bhutto in Dubai.

While Minister of State for Interior Shahzad Waseem failed to return to the house to inform it about the circumstances of the detention of PPP member Samina Khalid Gurki, PPP secretary-general Raja Pervez Ashraf said he had received information about the arrest of another party MNA, Manzoor Hussain Wasan from Sindh province, as he led the party walkout shortly after other opposition members had already stormed out of the house.

The minister had earlier left the house on the speaker’s instructions to get details about the matter from the authorities concerned and inform the house.

Despite his alliance’s differences with the PPP, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal member Hafiz Hussain Ahmed was the first to complain to the chair that police first visited Mrs Gurki’s house at midnight but picked her up at 5am on Friday and had lodged her at Rawalpindi’s Westridge police station.

Mr Ashraf said the provincial government had cut off the Punjab province from the rest of the country to stop PPP followers from reaching Lahore to welcome Mr Zardari and called the action “a conspiracy against the federation of Pakistan”.

He said while thousands of PPP followers had been detained, the police were also raiding houses of the party’s parliament members and added: “We are being treated as Red Indians.”

“This government has failed,” he said in a fiery speech and wondered how it was possible that the interior minister did not know about the detention of a member of the house.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) member Khwaja Mohammad Asif recalled that former prime minister and then Punjab chief minister Nawaz Sharif had allowed the PPP to give a big welcome to Benazir Bhutto on her return from foreign self-exile in 1986 and asked the government to allow the PPP to welcome Mr Zardari in the same way.

“Politics and democracy will be strengthened if PPP workers from Sindh are allowed to welcome Mr Zardari in Lahore,” he said.

To cheers from opposition benches, four women members of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) — Rehana Aleem Mashhadi and Mehnaz Rafi from Punjab, Noor Jehan Panezai from Balochistan, and Mrs Zeb Gohar Ayub from the North West Frontier Province — condemned the PPP woman member’s detention and asked the speaker to get her released immediately.

“How can this be done without informing you?” Dr Panezai asked the speaker about the detention.

Mr Kunwar Khalid Yunus of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement said the government policy seemed to be helping the projection of what he called “the real opposition” at the cost of the MMA, before his speech was cut short by PPP objections to the use of a word that was expunged by the speaker.

Opposition members protested when the speaker cut short the discussion over the issue to take up the day’s agenda for a short time that was left before the house was to be adjourned following the muezzin’s call for Friday prayers.

But his plan was foiled by PML-N member Khwaja Asif who came back after the walkout to point out that the 342-seat house lacked the required quorum of 86 members to continue its proceedings.

The chair gave up and adjourned the house until 5pm on Monday after two counts showed the quorum was not complete — the second time the lack of quorum cut short proceedings since the present session began on Monday.