ISLAMABAD: There was sharp finger pointing at both the interior minister and the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf for different reasons as the National Assembly on Monday backed the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination and condemned Thursday’s suicide attack on its senior member Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the JUI-F chief.

The charge of “negligence” against Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan came in his presence from one of his cabinet colleagues, Minister of State for Postal Services Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F), who said the minister neither called Maulana Fazl nor condemned the attack on him at a party rally in Quetta.

And the PTI, whose 30 lawmakers have resigned from the house as part of the party’s sit-in outside the parliament since mid-August, came in for indirect jibes from Leader of Opposition Khursheed Ahmed Shah and Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif over an alleged attempt to disrupt an anti-India Kashmiri rally in London on Sunday, which was also addressed by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

Strangely, Chaudhry Nisar refrained from responding to the comments of Maulana Haideri, who asked “why the interior minister is showing such negligence” even after the passage of five days and said that in view of the minister’s attitude “what can be expected of institutions working under him”.

Accusing unidentified intelligence agencies of failing to provide information about who actually was responsible for the attack, he wondered whether such an attitude be called “criminal negligence or insensitivity”.

Chaudhry Nisar left the house without responding after talking to some of his colleagues seated near his desk, apparently leaving the job to the Minister for States and Frontier Regions, retired Lt Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch, who assured the house (without referring to the Maulana’s charge) that the government would show no weakness in tracing those responsible for the Quetta attack.

“Who are these people who are after him (JUI-F chief) and inimical to democracy?” the minister asked and said: “There is need to think about them, there is need to search for them, and there is need to root them out.”

In what turned out to be a debate after Mr Khursheed Shah condemned the attack on the JUI-F chief as part of a foreign conspiracy to destabilise Pakistan and derail the democratic system, Maulana Fazlur Rehman too seemed critical of intelligence agencies, complaining that he got no information about who carried out what he called five previous attacks on him and his family members.

“Perhaps it is for this reason (of his complaints) that these institutions get angry with me,” he said. “If I say yes to them, there is no problem.”

Accusing unidentified quarters of imposing their thinking on parliament, the Maulana proposed that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrange a dialogue among political leaders – a suggestion that was endorsed later by Khawaja Asif.

The defence minister also joined voice with Mr Khursheed Shah in condemning the reported attempt to disrupt Sunday’s London rally held as a mark of solidarity with the Kashmiri struggle and linked what Mr Shah called miscreants to the PTI, without naming the party.

Mr Shah also demanded that “this party” apologise for this to the Kashmiri people.

In a resolution moved by Kashmir Affairs Minister Chaudhry Birjees Tahir in connection with the “Kashmir Black Day” – to mark the 67th anniversary of the landing of Indian forces in Srinagar – the house reiterated Pakistan’s “continued political, moral and diplomatic support to the just struggle of the people of Jammu and Kashmir towards achieving their right to self-determination enshrined in numerous United Nations resolutions”.

It saluted the Kashmiri people for resisting Indian occupation and “brutal atrocities”, voiced concern over “gross violations” of human rights there, demanded release of all Kashmiri political prisoners and called upon the United Nations to enforce implementation of its relevant resolutions on Kashmir.

In another resolution moved by the Minister of State for Parliamentary, Affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmed, the house condemned the suicide attack on Maulana Fazl as “part of an internal and external conspiracy to destabilise Pakistan and wind up democracy”. It asked the government to unmask those responsible though a judicial inquiry and bring them to justice.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2014