ISLAMABAD, Dec 21: The joint opposition has moved an adjournment motion in the Senate to press the government to abandon the establishment of General Headquarters (GHQ) in Islamabad and spend the money on some public welfare projects.

The issue would be discussed in the upper house in the coming session likely to be held after Eidul Azha.

The adjournment motion has been singed by senators of the joint opposition including opposition leader Mian Raza Rabbani, Enver Baig, Dr Babar Awan, Farooq H. Naek and Dr Safdar Ali Abbasi of the PPP; Professor Khursheed Ahmed of MMA, Ishaq Dar of the PML (N) and Asfandyar Wali of the ANP.

According to the motion, the establishment of the GHQ was not included in the original master plan of Islamabad, and it has been endorsed by the CDA officials.

However, the government in 1974 had decided that the headquarters of all the three services should be moved to the federal capital.

The motion said it was astonishing that the CDA had sold 870 acres to the military in E-10 at a throwaway price of Rs200 per square yard for building the GHQ, whereas it had auctioned land in the nearby area at the rate of Rs110,000 and Rs120,000 per square yard. Thus the CDA sustained a huge loss of money by selling the land to the army.

When contacted, Mian Raza Rabbani said, “First we have to go through the record whether the political government in 1974 had approved the shifting of all services’ headquarters to Islamabad because the present military regime has the habit of twisting the facts.”

He said a majority of people in the country today live below the poverty line. “As a result of rampant corruption and price hike, the incidents of suicide have increased. People have to face mini-budgets after every fifteen days when prices of petroleum products are deregularised,” he said.

In these circumstances, the huge amount of money allocated for the establishment of the GHQ should be spent on public welfare schemes. “That we are stressing and the issue would be raised vehemently in the upper house,” Mr Rabbani said.

The decision to move the GHQ to Islamabad also came under fire at a meeting of the National Assembly’s standing committee on planning and development this week.

The members of the committee felt that moving the GHQ will create “serious civic problems” for residents of the federal capital.