KARACHI, March 9: On a day when the journalists covering the Sindh Assembly staged a token walk-out to protest excesses against journalists and their family in the province, it was unfortunate that the question hour pertaining to home department’s performance could not be taken up on Friday, due to customary late start of the proceedings and the subsequent ruling of the Speaker to prorogue the assembly.

Although MPAs are upbeat when it comes to criticise the government on law and order, yet a cursory view of the written text of the question hour was shocking as the questions lacked depth.

As such the written reply was of the same nature. If there would have been a discussion, there were chances of generating substantive debate on the core issue of law and order.

For example in the written reply, it was stated that 57 persons were released on parole from January 1, 2006 to October 31, 2006.

District-wise annexure was also put on the table but not provided to the media. A discussion on this issue would have been fruitful and helped remove some of the misperceptions.

Interestingly the chief minister in his written reply informed the house that the rangers, deployed in the province are being paid amount incurred on fuel expenses as well as repair and maintenance of their official vehicles.

This amount during 2005-2006 was Rs106.06 million. But no one knows how long this arrangement will continue and when the police of the province will be in a position to take up complete responsibility. After all they too have anti-terrorist squad.

One would also like to know the total financial impact on the provincial resources due to their continued presence here and to what extent this had put the province in an embarrassing situation of obtaining overdraft.

It was shocking that 39 persons were killed in tribal clashes in Shikarpur and Sukkur districts from January 1 to September 25, 2006.

But since the question was asked about the specific area, the reply did not cover other such clashes, reported by the media. Same was the case with regards to killings on the pretext of karo-kari, which has reached alarming level in the province.

According to the information provided by the home department Rs208,315,000 were spent for purchasing 475 vehicles for Sindh police. It also gives detail of the expenditure of the POL expenses of the Karachi police from July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2006.