ISLAMABAD: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz will explain in the Senate on Thursday his reported statement that “Pakistan will continue to upgrade its defensive capabilities by acquiring advanced technology”.

Taking notice of the adviser’s statement, Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani had asked Leader of the House Raja Zafarul Haq to ensure presence of the adviser on Thursday to give a policy statement on the issue. Mr Aziz, in an apparent response to India’s supersonic interceptor missile test, had stated that Pakistan would take up the matter at international level.

When contacted, Leader of the House Raja Zafarul Haq said that he had informed the adviser about the chair’s directive and that Mr Aziz would come to the Senate to take members into confidence over his reported statement.

Meanwhile, the opposition members will also seek permission to move adjournment motions on important issues such as the standoff between peasants and authorities over Okara farms and extra-judicial killing of an MQM activist in Karachi.

The motion on the Okara farms issue has been submitted by Sassui Palijo, Rubina Khalid, Islamuddin Shaikh, Saleem Mandviwala, Saeed Ghani and Farhatullah Babar of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Mohsin Aziz of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI). Through the motion, the members have sought discussion on “the non-settlement of long standing issue of peasants of Okara farms and the decades-long atrocities, tortures and arrests.”

The motions on the killing of the MQM activist in the Rangers’ custody in Karachi had been submitted separately by MQM’s Tahir Mashhadi and PPP’s Farhatullah Babar.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2016