LAHORE: Opposition in the Punjab Assembly on Monday staged a walkout against what it called ‘target killing’ in the province and demanded Rangers operation.

Speaking on a point of order, Opposition Leader Mahmoodur Rashid said the target killing was rampant in Punjab while police were giving protection to suspects.

“The incident of target killing of two PTI workers had occurred about 10 months ago, but police failed to arrest the suspects involved in it. One of the nominated suspects, Tariq Phapa, had killed another PTI worker Mirza Tanvir who was a complainant of the case.

In spite of his request to provide him security in the face of threats police did not take the matter seriously,” he said and added advocate Nasir Turabi, a member of law chamber of former governor Latif Khosa, also fell victim to target killing in Kasur which showed a complete failure of the Punjab police to control such incidents.

Seeks Rangers operation in Punjab

About kidnapping incidents of children, Mr Rashid said never in Punjab’s history such a large number of children had been kidnapped. He said the situation was alarming and spoke about the Punjab government’s failure.

Citing the government’s failure to control target killing in the province, Mr Rashid and other opposition members staged a walkout of the House.

Some of the members raised the ‘Go Nawaz Go’ slogan before leaving the House. The treasury members responded them with ‘Go Imran Go’.

Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said the PTI workers were killed owing to ‘enmity’ they had developed during the local body polls.

The opposition members, however, returned to the House at the request of some treasury members sent to them by Speaker Rana Iqbal.

As the opposition members returned PTI’s Arif Abbasi pointed out quorum. Since the required number of members was not present the speaker expressed his annoyance over the PTI MPA’s pointing out quorum.

He said there was a lot more important business of the House to be taken up including some resolutions which the opposition unanimously agreed to table.

Another treasury team persuaded the opposition to return to the House and the proceedings started.

Speaker Rana Iqbal and Mahmoodur Rashid had heated arguments over the rights of a legislator whether to point out quorum or not.

Mr Rashid said a legislator could point out quorum any time during the proceedings while Mr Iqbal insisted that it was not appropriate to do so when there had been some understanding regarding the House business.

RESOLUTIONS: The House adopted two resolutions unanimously.

Mr Rashid presented a resolution about the Quetta blast. It condemned the blast in which more than 70 people, including lawyers and journalists, were killed.

It shared the grief of the victims’ families and demanded of the government to arrest those involved in this heinous crime and bring them to justice.

Another resolution was presented by Rana Sanaullah paying rich tributes to the services of iconic social worker Abdul Sattar Edhi.

It expressed the hope that the Edhi Foundation would continue his mission.

The House also offered fateha for the Quetta blast victims, Mr Edhi and former federal minister Chaudhry Anwar Ali Cheema.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2016