ISLAMABAD, June 5: An unpunished bloodshed in Karachi and the government’s latest crackdown against the electronic media and opposition activists will haunt the National Assembly’s last budget session beginning on Wednesday.

Hot-blooded exchanges on these and other offshoots of an unresolved judicial crisis are likely to mark the start of the session -- after a 22-day recess -- and at least two more days before the government unfolds its last budget on June 9 before the end of its five-year term in November.

The last session of the 342-seat assembly was prorogued on May 15 after noisy opposition protests against the May 12 killings of more than 40 people in Karachi brought the house to a standstill.

The ruling coalition, led by the Pakistan Muslim League, will face an uphill task in matching the opposition onslaught because of reported differences in its ranks about President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s March 9 charge-sheeting of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry in a reference sent to the Supreme Judicial Council for his removal and the role of its ally Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in the May 12 events in Karachi.

Opposition sources said protests against those killings, which the opposition parties blame on the MQM as part of a move to block a trip to Karachi by Justice Iftikhar -- in the face of denials by the other side -- will be resumed with full fury when the house meets at 5pm.

The opposition parties are particularly incensed by the government’s refusal so far to order a judicial inquiry or make any arrests for the killings, which happened when police and other law-enforcement agencies seemed to be doing nothing to stop.

Furious voices will also be raised, they said, against the government’s moves in the past few days to gag the country’s private television channels, apparently to punish them for their extensive coverage of the judicial crisis, and the latest detention of opposition activists mainly in Punjab.

“When clouds come, there will also be thunder and lightning,...and then there must be rain too,” Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) parliamentary secretary Izhar Amrohvi said about the prevailing political atmosphere on the eve of the National Assembly session.“But God forbid that there be a hurricane,” he added.

Mr Amrohvi said parliamentary groups of the ARD and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) alliance will have their separate meetings and then a combined opposition meeting before the start of the session to finalise their line of action.

Opposition members have already given notices for adjournment motions seeking debates in both houses of parliament on the new restrictions imposed on the electronic media through a presidential ordinance issued on Monday and instructions issued by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) on Friday.

Similar motions on the Karachi killings are already pending before the National Assembly as well as the Senate, which is due to resume its session on Saturday after a record three-week adjournment that was ordered by Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro on May 18 when protests against the Karachi bloodbath blocked proceedings.

The combined opposition has also given notices of resolutions in both houses seeking disapproval of the president's Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Ordinance that gives the Pemra some sweeping powers to punish television channels for violating rules and came only two days after the Pemra barred the channels from airing talk shows and give live coverage of events relating to the judicial crisis.

The opposition parties have not yet sought a debate on an army corps commanders meeting on Friday that apparently backed President Gen Musharraf in his current standoff with the legal community and opposition parties.

But opposition sources said the issue is likely to arouse protesting voices in parliament against what the opposition sees as a desperate attempt of the regime to stem a hostile movement over the judicial crisis and give a message to its foreign backers that it retains the army's backing.