22 April 2005	Friday	12 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1426

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ISLAMABAD, April 21: Legislators belonging to the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) on Thursday staged a walkout from the National Assembly and kept away from the remaining proceedings of the house till it was prorogued by the president’s orders.

Taking the floor on a point of order immediately after the PPP Parliamentarians had walked out, Liaquat Baloch of the MMA informed the house that the government had failed to provide protection to the people in Karachi as one of the two students kidnapped by an ethnic students’ organization had died in hospital.

He said the MMA, which was already protesting against the government’s apathy towards its workers detained in Gujranwala, and the speaker, who had failed to issue production order in favour of Qazi Hameeduddin MNA, would prefer to walk out instead of sitting in the house. He said the police under instructions from the provincial governor had refused to register a case of kidnapping, torturing and keeping in illegal detention of two students one of whom, Farhan Asif, had succumbed to his injuries.

Mr Baloch further said that the legs of Farhan had been broken, hot charcoal was applied to his body joints and then he was left on the road along with the other student, Usman. Both were taken to a hospital by the police as unidentified persons where Farhan succumbed to his injuries.

He said the police, instead of preparing a report after inquiring the students’ parents, had registered a case on behalf of the state showing them to be ‘unidentified’.

Two women MMA MNAs, Razia Azizuddin and Begum Bilquis Saif, kept waving a placard with photographs of Farhan, including those showing the injured parts of his body. They also visited the press gallery to appeal to human rights and women rights bodies to take notice of the brutality committed against the innocent youth in Karachi.

They alleged that an MQM minister, Rauf Siddiqui, was patronizing the criminals by disallowing the police to register a case on the complaint of the parents of the two students.