KARACHI, May 16: The Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians has decided to again requisition the Sindh assembly session which was prorogued on Monday. Disclosing this in a news conference, leader of the opposition Nisar Khuhro said the requisition would be deposited in the assembly secretariat on Tuesday.

Mr Khuhro slammed the government for not allowing the opposition to move a resolution condemning a blatant violation of the constitution by the police in Lahore, who manhandled human rights activists.

He said the manner the government opposed the resolution, which was aimed at expressing deep consternation and regret over the gross abuse of fundamental rights by policemen and to recommend that the Sindh government should approach the federal government to ensure maximum punishment for the offenders and resultant restoration of the respect of women across Pakistan, had exposed the true face of the regime’s enlightened moderation. “It is nothing more than a police state,” he commented.

After discussing the strategy with his parliamentary party, Mr Khuhro said the PPP-P initiative was aimed at echoing peoples’ sentiments by highlighting the problems they were confronted with. He accused the speaker of being partisan; not allowing the PPP-P to move a motion on the violation of human rights and baton charge on HRCP marathon in Lahore.

He accused the speaker of not exercising his authority judiciously and prorogued the house without any provocation. “When the assembly could pass resolutions on Pope Paul and Tsunami, why it could not condemn violation of human rights in Lahore?” he asked.

Mr Khuhro also asked why the government failed to condemn the statement of Salman Shah in which he had said that Sindh had given up its stand on NFC Award. He demanded that the government, instead of demanding a meagre percentage on income tax collection, should negotiate on NFC Award as per the unanimous resolution passed on Jan 30, 2003.