ISLAMABAD: Members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) staged a walkout from the Senate on Wednesday in protest against the alleged victimisation of party workers by law-enforcement agencies in Karachi.

Before announcing the walkout, retired Col Tahir Mashhadi called for a judicial probe into the alleged killings and disappearances of MQM workers.

The house witnessed another walkout, this one by all opposition members, over the government’s failure to provide a complete list of the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) being privatised.

“The ongoing operation in Karachi is targeted against political workers and not against criminals,” said Senator Mashhadi of the MQM while speaking during the Zero Hour, alleging that 45 party workers had recently gone missing.

He said 13 bodies of the party workers had been found in different parts of Karachi and 20 more MQM activists had been picked up by security agencies.

During the question-hour session, opposition members protested over an incomplete reply offered by the ministry of finance about the proposed privatisation.

PPP’s Raza Rabbani said that through a written reply to a question asked by his party member Sughra Imam the finance ministry had stated that the government wanted to privatise 32 SOEs on a priority basis whereas the reply had mentioned the list of only 11 SOEs.

Minister of State for Interior Balighur Rehman, who was responding to questions on behalf of Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, said that he had the list of all 32 SOEs and then started reading the names. However, the opposition members refused to hear him, saying the list should be presented before the house in a written form.

Deputy Chairman Sabir Baloch deferred the question for the next sitting after the opposition members staged a token walkout.

Meanwhile, PPP’s Farhatullah Babar regretted that there had been “a systematic erosion of parliament” due to some controversial decisions of the courts during the past five years when his party was ruling the country. He then listed a number of Supreme Court’s decisions which, according to him, had amounted to erosion of the authority of parliament.He called for revisiting the rule restricting debate on sub judice matters. Article 68 of the Constitution, he said, restricted such discussions only to the extent of personal conduct of a judge in the discharge of his duties and there should be no bar on discussing other issues without commenting on merits or demerits of any particular argument in a court.

He stressed the need for a parliamentary debate on the exercise of suo motu powers by judges.

The government introduced in the Senate the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan (Amendment) Bill, 2014, that had already been passed by the National Assembly. The bill was referred to the committee concerned.