ISLAMABAD: The absence of a bureaucrat from the meeting of a Senate committee on Friday so irked its chairman that he warned he would issue an arrest warrant for the official if he did not turn up for the panel’s next meeting.

The director general for immigration and passports, Ishrat Ali, was supposed to brief the Senate Standing Committee on Interior on organisational structure and working of his directorate general, but he did show up and sent some other officer instead.

Chairman of the committee and former interior minister Rehman Malik did not allow the officer to conduct a briefing and said the behaviour of the DG was unacceptable as he had chosen to skip the meeting for the fourth time.

“This is insubordination of the committee. If he does not turn up at the next meeting, I will issue his arrest warrants. I have the powers to do that,” Mr Malik said.

Discussing the issue of four Samjhauta case accused, the committee rejected their acquittal by a special court in India and termed the judgement “engineered justice”.

Mr Malik said the government should take up the issue at the International Court of Justice and the United Nations following sham proceedings of the case in the Indian court.

Mr Malik said that when he was interior minister, he got the Jamaatud Dawa chief arrested. He said he had written letters to the Indian prime minister and interior minister, asking them to provide evidence against him, but received no evidence.

The Senate panel condemned the terrorist atta­cks in two mosques of Chris­tchurch in New Zealand, which left 50 innocent people dead and more than 40 injured. The committee expressed grief over the loss of human lives in the incident and expressed sympathies with the families whose mem­bers were martyred in the shooting.

The committee appr­eciated humane handling of the aftermath of the tragedy by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

The committee was also briefed in detail about the incident of rape and killing of a three-year-old girl in Havelian, Abbottabad. The Abbottabad SP investigation informed the committee that more than 800 DNA samples had been taken so far from the area, including details of everyone who had visited the area on that day.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2019