ISLAMABAD, June 9: Noisy opposition protests against the May 12 bloodshed in Karachi disrupted the presentation of the new budget in the National Assembly on Saturday, provoking warnings from the chair against three opposition members and possible suspension of at least one of them.

In a rare development, an aggressive opposition won permission for brief speeches by its members on points of order before Minister of State for Finance Omar Ayub Khan could unveil budget proposals for the fiscal year 2007-08 but then ran into trouble with Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain when he stopped them from raising what he called controversial matters.

That provoked opposition protests and slogan-chanting after only two speeches by Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) Chairman Amin Fahim and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) member Liaquat Baloch that mainly denounced the government and one of its allies for the deaths of more than 40 people in Karachi in violence on the occasion of an aborted trip there by suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

The speaker’s refusal to allow any more speeches after an angry rejoinder by Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) parliamentary leader Farooq Sattar and brief intervention by Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain hotted up the atmosphere in the house while Islamabad sizzled in the season’s hottest day, with mercury rising to 45 degrees Celsius.

“Go Musharraf go”, “Zalimo jawab do, khoon ka hisab do” (oppressors give reply, give account of blood), the opposition members continued chanting after rising from their seats, drowning out the budget speech for about 15 minutes before walking out of the house to boycott the remainder of the two-hour sitting.Their slogans also blamed President Pervez Musharraf and the MQM for the Karachi killings.

The speaker first warned PML-N member Abid Sher Ali of action against him for leading the slogan-chanting and then gave similar warnings to two MMA members, Liaquat Baloch and Maulana Ali Akbar Chitrali.

There was no immediate official word about any action taken against the three opposition members who were warned, but opposition sources said Mr Sher Ali might have been suspended for a week.

In the first speech from the opposition side, Mr Fahim, who is also heads the People’s Party Parliamentarians, said both the federal and Sindh governments were responsible for the Karachi bloodbath and regretted that no official inquiry into “such a big incident” had yet been ordered.

He said while there was no security for the life of the people and laws were being made to suppress the freedom of speech, people would be forced to “do other things”. “If I don’t do it, someone else may do it.”

The PPP leader particularly protested against the blockading of roads in Karachi on May 12 with containers and alleged firing on opposition crowds from overhead bridges and asked how the governor, the chief minister and chief secretary of the Sindh province could have a right to remain in their positions if they did not know who did all that.

Mr Fahim showed to the house the shirt-less picture of a Karachi lawyer and civil rights campaigner, Mohammad Iqbal Kazmi, on the front page of Saturday’s Dawn narrating the ordeal of his alleged kidnapping after he filed a petition before the Sindh High Court on the May 12 violence and said: “People are being kidnapped, murdered and there is nobody to ask why. Where is the government and whose government is there?”

In what looked like a hidden praise for the Punjab government, Mr Fahim said “not a Coca Cola bottle was broken” when Justice Iftikhar drove to Gujrat, the home town of PML president and provincial chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, and then to Lahore on May 5 and asked: “What heavens would have fallen if he had been allowed to visit Karachi?”

Mr Baloch provoked the MQM when, in a reference to MQM leader Altaf Hussain, he accused “a man wanted in Pakistan and now a British citizen” was directing violence in Karachi.

All MQM members stood up while Farooq Sattar spoke in protest, though most of his speech was drowned by opposition shouting.

Of what could be heard of him, Mr Sattar, in turn named MMA president Qazi Hussain Ahmed for what he called making brother fight brother and referred to incidents of violence in the MMA-ruled NWFP like the recent deadly bomb blast in Charsadda.

Reacting to the protests, Chaudhry Shujaat accused the opposition of violating an understanding given to the chair for not creating any disturbance during budget presentation and advised the chair to let the budget speech to be made.

Still the speaker allowed PML-N parliamentary leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali to speak on the condition he would not raise any controversial matter, but cut him short by switching off his mike before the member could complete even one sentence starting with “one man in this country....” — an apparent reference to President Pervez Musharraf.

That started more opposition slogan-chanting and desk-thumping which continued until their walkout, which allowed Omar Ayub Khan to continue his budget speech uninterrupted.