June 03, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 28, 1429

ISLAMABAD, June 2: The bombing outside the Danish embassy here on Monday that killed eight people put the ruling coalition on the defensive over law and order on the opening day of the present National Assembly’s first budget session and sparked an opposition walkout despite a government assurance that it had moved quickly to catch the culprits.

Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Farooq H. Naek said “only six Pakistanis” were killed in the midday attack — though doctors put the toll at eight.

The matter was brought up by members from both sides of the house, with the opposition raising questions about security while the embassy was already under threat over sacrilegious cartoons printed in Denmark.

The minister told the house that a joint team of security agencies was investigating the incident with a preliminary report due within 24 hours. “Our effort is to track down the people responsible as soon as possible and get them punished according to law.”

But his remark that “only six Pakistanis … and no foreigner, were killed” angered some opposition members who thought the minister’s vocabulary suggested that he put less value on Pakistani lives compared to foreigners.

Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi’s refusal to allow them to speak led to a token walkout by members of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q.

The government, which has been blaming most of its troubles on President Pervez Musharraf and the previous government of his loyalists since taking office at the end of March, seemed embarrassed when it came under flak hours after the bombing.

But some ruling coalition members had a chance to empty their spleen on President Musharraf during an inconclusive debate on what an adjournment motion called “increasing corruption in the district government system and its failure”.

Initiating the discussion on the bombing through a point of order, former minister Amir Muqam accused the government of letting things go “from bad to worse” and being a “failure in every field” before being cut short by the deputy speaker who had his mike switched off.

Abdul Qadir Khanzada of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which did not join the walkout later, said the bombing, together with the prevailing economic uncertainty, could scare foreign investors.

He urged the government to improve the situation in consultation with other parties to prevent what he feared could be an “economic tsunami”.

Birjees Tahir of the PML-N said there should have been better security for the Danish embassy in view of the threats over the objectionable caricatures drawn by a Danish cartoonist and published in Denmark and some other European countries.

He said President Musharraf’s departure from the scene and supremacy of the Constitution and law were necessary to end what he called a process of conspiracies responsible for the present political and economic crisis.

Questions about the law and order situation and militancy in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas are likely to be raised on Tuesday when the house will discuss an adjournment motion by some Fata members about a recent attack in Bajuar by an unmanned spy plane allegedly of US forces in Afghanistan and the May 21 killing of four relatives of MNA Maulana Nurul Haq Qadri.

In brief remarks, Maulana Qadri said the attack on his family car during a drive from Landi Kotal to Peshawar was part of “terrorism and violence” gripping the region. He said his family had been punished for its love of Pakistan and the pursuit of a peaceful way of life taught by Sufis.

In the debate on district governments, which was begun during the previous session in April, veteran PPP parliamentarian Zafar Ali Shah said President Musharraf had introduced the system to strengthen military dictatorship with its hidden aims including providing props for a “king’s party”, getting votes for himself in a controversial referendum that elected him president in 2002, weakening political parties, federalising the local government system and pursuing a divide-and-rule policy.

Sardar Bahadur Sehar of the PML-Q said the system was aimed at providing relief to people at their doorstep and decentralising resources to benefit local population but problems arose in decentralisation of powers, while absence of the promised district ombudsmen encouraged corruption.

PML-N’s Ayaz Amir called the president’s model a “totally imported concept” but said some of the devolution of powers under it could be retained in a system of local bodies that should be evolved with national consensus.

ANP’s Masood Abbas called it a “system of confusion” rather than devolution and said it should be replaced with the previous system.

PPP’s Hamid Saeed Kazmi said changing the system was the need of the hour.