ISLAMABAD: As if on command, both Interior Minister Caudhry Nisar Ali Khan and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement held off a duel over the latest security crackdown against the party in Karachi as the National Assembly began its spring session on Monday only with condemnations of Sunday’s deadly suicide attack on two churches in Lahore.

Intense fireworks were expected between the two sides as the MQM had planned a walkout to protest against last week’s raid by paramilitary Rangers on the party headquarters in Karachi and the detention of dozens of its workers and the interior minister had promised a policy statement in the house that could have responded also to MQM chief Altaf Hussain’s harsh criticism of the country’s military.

Chaudhry Nisar remained in the house carrying an apparent file of his notes and seemed prepared to speak after a brief discussion on the Lahore suicide bombings that killed 15 people and wounded 85.

Also read: MQM's criticism of army and Rangers unacceptable: Nisar

But at the fag-end of the discussion in the form of brief speeches that Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq allowed as points of order, the minister left the house without speaking after a whisper from Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and ruling party chief whip Sheikh Aftab Ahmed.

As Chaudhry Nisar moved around in the house earlier, MQM parliamentary leader Farooq Sattar and his deputy Abdul Rashid Godail also came to him apparently to talk about putting off the clash for the day. But the minister’s continued presence in the house with his papers indicated he would speak about what seemed to be the most dire operation against the Karachi-based party after two deadly crackdowns in the 1990s.

That may now happen on Tuesday or the day after.

Contrary to the MQM leader’s outbursts against the military in recent television interviews, the party lawmakers, who would make a hue and cry over the smallest happening in Karachi to their dislike, seemed unusually subdued on Monday.

Even they conveyed through PPP senior parliamentarian Naveed Qamar that they would not immediately press their adjournment motion on the Karachi raid so as to allow the house to discuss the Lahore attacks first.

It was only a prominent government ally, Pakhtuunkhwa Milli Awami Party chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai, who talked of Aftaf Hussain in the sitting, saying he had seen the MQM leader on an unspecified television channels “talking like Gautum Buddh”.

While most other lawmakers across party lines called for more protection to non-Muslim minorities, Mr Achakzai proposed convening a joint session of both houses of parliament, with military top brass also attending on special invitation, to deliberate how to extricate Pakistan from its present “state of war”.

REBUKE FOR SECP CHIEF: In an unrelated development, the formal presentation of the annual report of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) provoked a rebuke from the speaker for SECP chairman Tahir Mahmood, whose picture appeared on a full page of the gazette notification of the report.

“This is not a fashion show,” the speaker remarked, after a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N, Awais Leghari, pointed out the publication of the picture, and directed the parliamentary secretary for finance, Rana Mohammad Afzal, to bring the SECP chairman to his chamber for an explanation.

The speaker also wanted Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who was not present in the house, to take notice of what he saw as an uncalled for publicity of the SECP chairman.

SEED BILL PASSED: The house marked the first day of the session also by passing, without a debate, a government bill aimed to amend the Seed Act of 1976 to help develop a modern seed industry in the country, including authorisation for the registration of genetically modified crops.

Published in Dawn March 17th , 2015

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