ISLAMABAD: The Standing Committee of the National Assembly on Rules, Procedures and Privileges on Thursday summoned former prime minister Imran Khan and ex-interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed in connection with the storming of Parliament Lodges in March this year.

The committee’s chairman, Rana Mohammad Qasim Noon, a dissident of Pakistan Thereek-i-Insaf (PTI), also directed the inspector general and the senior superintendent of Islamabad police to appear in person along with the relevant record.

The committee issued the directions after taking up a privilege motion filed by the opposition parties against the Parliament Lodges storming on March 10.

The capital police conducted an operation in the Parliament Lodges and arrested 19 people, including JUI-F MNAs Salahuddin Ayubi and Maulana Jamaluddin, after members of Ansarul Islam, a uniformed volunteer force of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F), entered the premises in a large number.

The then IGP Islamabad Mohammad Ahsan Younus took notice of the group’s presence inside the lodges.

According to the FIR registered at the Secretariat police station under Sections 186, 188, 147 and 149 of Pakistan Penal Code, police got information that 40 to 50 volunteers of JUI-F’s Ansarul Islam, a banned outfit as per a 2019 Statutory Regulatory Order, were conducting a security drill and got control of the main gate of Parliament Lodges. It said the police obtained a search warrant from the subdivisional magistrate and reached the lodges along with him and a prison van on the information that the volunteers in uniform were present inside Flat 401. The 40 to 50 volunteers found in the lodges were arrested amid confrontation after negotiations failed, it said.

However, the police said all the volunteers detained during the action were released on personal surety.

The opposition senators had filed the privileged motion against the police action. In the privilege motion, the opposition parties wrote to the National Assembly speaker that they would like to raise a question of breach of privilege of the august house and its members in accordance with Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in National Assembly 2007.

They claimed that a heavy contingent of Islamabad police along with the senior district administration forcibly entered the lodges and physically manhandled elected members of parliament.

“In vicious act of police barbarity, police broke down doors and forcibly entered multiple lodges where members reside with their families,” the privilege motion stated, adding several lawmakers were injured in the ‘attack’ and were ‘illegally arrested’.

It said the opposition parties believed that since this act of police and the district administration breached the privilege of lawmakers, they would like to raise a question of privilege against the interior minister, police and the ICT administration officers.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2022