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| May 31, 2005 | Tuesday | Rabi-us-Sani 22, 1426 |
Law and order to top Senate agenda
ISLAMABAD, May 30: The government is likely to come under severe criticism over law and order at the start of a Senate session on Tuesday when the opposition plans to raise Friday’s suspected suicide bombing at a nearby shrine that killed 20 people. The session, which will begin at 5pm, will mark the start of the new parliamentary year of the two-year-old upper house.
The combined opposition has given notice of an adjournment motion seeking a debate on the devastating attack during a religious ceremony at Bari Imam shrine not far from the parliament house.
Opposition groups — the Democratic Alliance and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) — have filed at least 60 adjournment motions seeking debates on issues ranging from delivery of used nuclear centrifuges’ parts to a UN nuclear watchdog agency to a strike by the workers of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company, sources said.
They said the opposition was also likely to seek discussion on alleged desecration of the Holy Quran by US interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre and unrest in Balochistan.
The desecration issue was discussed in detail earlier this month in the National Assembly that passed a bipartisan resolution calling for a thorough probe and punishment to the guilty. But the sources said the opposition parties, particularly those of the MMA, would like a similar debate and passage of a resolution in the Senate as well.
One motion signed by leader of the opposition in Senate Raza Rabbani and several other senators from both opposition alliances and sent to the Senate secretariat said the May 27 attack on the Bari Imam shrine was “an eye-opener to the rulers who claim that the law and order situation in the country is fully under control and terrorists have been ditched”.
This incident “under the nose of the federal government is a glaring example of the failure of the government to protect the life and property of the general public...,” it said. Another opposition motion said the news of the dispatch of centrifuge parts to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency in connection with a probe about the Iranian nuclear programme was ‘extremely serious’ with reference to the country’s security and defence plans and had caused a ‘grave concern’ among the public.
The government is expected to bring to the house some bills recently passed by the National Assembly, including one tightening official control over the electronic media, before the upper house discusses the budget for fiscal year 2005-06 to make its recommendations.
The budget is due to be presented in the National Assembly on June 6 and the Senate can only make recommendations about the government’s financial proposals which the lower house may or may not accept.
Opposition sources said the opposition parties were also likely to question the government about when President Pervez Musharraf would address an obligatory joint sitting of both houses of parliament at the risk of facing protests from opposition alliances against his military presidency.
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