ISLAMABAD, July 30: The opposition assailed the government in the National Assembly on Monday over poor law and order and demanded it must now quit while some ruling party back-benchers put up a brave defence in the face of intimidating shouting from religious parties.
An inconclusive debate on the law and order situation in the country at the start of the new session of the lower house after a recess of more than a month was marked by a furious behaviour of the religious parties grouped in the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) alliance over anti-militant operations of the security forces, particularly the deadly blitz at Lal Masjid compound earlier this month.
Opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who opened the debate over several opposition adjournment motions over the Lal Masjid episode and a wave of suicide bombings that followed it, accused the government of shedding the blood of its own citizens in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and in Islamabad at the behest of the United States and called for Pakistan’s withdrawal from the US-led coalition in the so-called war on terrorism.
He said the government should admit that its foreign and domestic policies had failed and give up power for failing to protect the country’s ideological and geographical frontiers.
The theme was picked up by almost all four other members of the opposition who spoke before the house was adjourned until Tuesday, but with varying degrees of emphasis about the roles of militants and government agencies which were accused by some of inefficiency or collusion in the emergence of militancy.
In the absence of top leadership of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, the responsibility of defending the government and President Pervez Musharraf’s policies fell on a party maverick, Riaz Hussain Pirzada, and two women back-benchers -- Mehnaz Rafi and Gule Farkhanda.
All of them had to face protest shouting from MMA members whenever they made critical remarks about religious leaders and or blamed madressahs for indoctrinating or training militants for activities such as suicide bombings and other acts of defiance of state authority as witnessed at Lal Masjid and its Jamia Hafsa madressah for about six months before the authorities took control of the complex on July 10 in an operation in which more than 100 people were killed.
Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain had to appeal to Maulana Fazlur Rehman to control his alliance members who were shouting at Mr Pirzada and wanted him to discontinue his speech after the PML member ridiculed the role of ulema in sectarian and militant activities and asked why such acts were happening even in the NWFP where the MMA was ruling and in Balochistan where it was in the PML-led coalition government.
The two women members of the PML braved similar obstructions.
Mr Naveed Qamar of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) accused the government of deliberately prolonging the Lal Masjid affair for political reasons and creating conditions in which “every citizen feels to be unsafe”, but said the remedy lay in “participation of real representatives of people elected in free and fair elections”.
“If you cannot manage the country, then for God’s sake leave it alone and let free and fair elections to be held ,” he said.
Mr Qamar was the lone speaker from the PPP, many of whose members were still reported to be in Britain for meetings with party chairperson Benazir Bhutto in connection with the award of party tickets for the next elections.
Tehmina Daultana of the PML-N, who was particularly bitter about the reported killings of some orphan children in the Lal Masjid operation, said she would not say the militants were doing the right thing, but history would never forgive the government for the bloodbath that, according to her, could have been avoided.
She blamed all this on President Musharraf, ending a sentimental speech with some bitter remarks about him that were expunged from the record by PML member Riaz Pirzada who was then chairing the sitting.
MMA member Dr Ataur Rehman accused the government of using chemicals in the Lal Masjid operation.
MMA member, Maulana Mohammad Khan Shirani, said no madressah was employing ex-servicemen to train its students and, in an apparent reference to intelligence agencies, added that the militants must be receiving training somewhere else.
