December 23, 2008	Tuesday	Zilhaj 24, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Dec 22: The National Assembly session was abruptly adjourned on Monday at the cost of its agenda in an apparent move to muffle the opposition which cried foul, accusing the government of seeking to make parliament ineffective to protect the chief justice in a probe by a house committee.

Leader of the Opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the surprise adjournment shortly after the question hour without taking up the rest of the agenda had also prevented him from making a planned speech on the security situation to urge the government to “put its act together” against perceived Indian threats after last month’s terror attacks in Mumbai.

House proceedings were cut short by Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi when the chairman of the house standing committee on education, Abid Sher Ali of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, insisted to speak on a point of order hours after the ruling coalition used its majority in the 17-member body to block the media from the probe into alleged favours won by a daughter of Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar to be able to get admission in a medical college.

“This is not the way (to speak) on a point of order,” Mr Kundi remarked angrily as he adjourned the house until 10am on Tuesday, after allowing Abdul Malik Wazir from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to speak on a point of order to protest at two missile strikes by US drones and call for taking a strong stand against US violations and Indian threats.

Mr Ali told reporters he had wanted to speak about what he called the government’s “political hooliganism” in using its majority to block the committee proceedings and hide facts with the help its allies like Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who was present in the meeting that decided not to allow media reporters’ presence.

“There could be no greater political hooliganism than this,” the PML-N member remarked about the affair, which is likely to renew his party’s tensions with the Pakistan People’s Party after an apparent peace move by the two sides last week when they had agreed to allow the standing committee to proceed with the probe despite a Supreme Court judge’s restraining order which was later vacated.

Chaudhry Nisar, talking to reporters at his office, said the rulers were “bent upon making the whole parliament ineffective to save Justice Dogar” at a time when the forum should have been used to send out a strong message against Indian threats in the wake of the Nov 26 Mumbai attacks.

He accused the government of being terrified by Indian threats in the same way as former president Pervez Musharraf had “succumbed to a single telephone call” from then US secretary of state Collin Powell in 2001 to change policy after the 9/11 attacks.

“It is because of the government’s weak policy that we are being regarded as culprits without proof and we are facing retreat on every front without any reason,” he said and added: “It is a blundering, fumbling, struggling government which has absolutely no comprehension of how to tackle the problem. It neither has the nerve nor the commitment to stand its ground and the see the country through one of the most difficult periods of its history.”

Chaudhy Nisar compared the rulers with “Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burned” and advised them to provide courageous leadership to “a brave and self-respecting nation”.