ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan seemed the same old hawk he was before an estrangement with his party leadership as he rejected opposition calls in the National Assembly on Tuesday against using troops in Islamabad without judicial oversight.

But he and a couple of his cabinet colleagues repeatedly assured the house that a notification issued last month under the Constitution’s Article 245 – and provinces advised to replicate it, if needed – was meant only to use troops in aid of civil power only to combat terrorism, not to stifle any political event like a protest march on Islamabad planned by the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) for Aug 14.

Both he and Defence and Water and Power Minister Khwaja Mohammad Asif also said that Article 245, which debars courts from questioning military’s actions in an area of its deployment, had been invoked to protect troops from litigation as was happening now in connection with the missing persons.

The government had managed to block an opposition-sought debate on the controversial notification on the opening day of the National Assembly session on Monday in favour of a debate on the Israeli invasion of Gaza. But it agreed, under opposition pressure, to discuss the notification on Tuesday by suspending the agenda of the session’s first members’ day -- instead of Wednesday set by a government-dominated house business advisory committee.

After all opposition parties demanded a withdrawal of the notification, Khwaja Asif, who talked of having “learnt from our mistakes”, indicated the possibility of accommodating the opposition viewpoint, saying that though there was no malice or ill-will in the government move, “we will accept whatever decision is taken by this house”.

But speaking immediately after him to wind up over three hours of debate, Chaudhry Nisar seemed conceding little to the opposition as he defended what he called a decision taken in a “very limited meeting” of the civilian and military leadership to requisition troops “wherever needed” under Article 245.

In his first speech to the house after a long absence from parliament since early June because of undisclosed, and now resolved, differences, apparently with the prime minister, the minister said all provinces had also been told to requisition troops, if needed, on the same lines.

Informing the house that troops had already been deployed at seven places in and around Islamabad, including the Margalla hills overlooking the capital in the north, he said they were there for “the protection of the people” and that they “will not be used against any ‘dharna’ (sit-in) or march”.

Railways Minister Khwaja Saad Rafique said the PTI chairman Imran Khan should have waited for two more months until the completion of the current military operation against militants in North Waziristan instead of planning his march on Islamabad now to press his grievances about alleged rigging in last year’s general elections. But he ruled out the troops and PTI marchers coming face to face.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2014