ISLAMABAD, June 17: People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar has criticized Senate Chairman Mohammadmian Soomro for killing yet another party resolution seeking to condemn the public humiliation of a woman by male members of security agencies in Lahore, last month.

In a statement here on Thursday, the PPP senator said the chairman had rejected the resolution on the ground that the incident was a provincial matter and beyond the jurisdiction of the federal government.

The PPP resolution moved by Mr Babar last month had stated: "This House condemns the public humiliation of a woman in Lahore on May 11 by plainclothed male security personnel.

Further, this House recommends that appropriate action be taken against all those responsible for causing national embarrassment by publicly humiliating a woman." The resolution was accompanied by a telling picture published in the newspapers in which a woman was shown dangling from the clutches of four male members of a security agency.

The PPP senator said the rejection in chamber of the resolution on the ground that it was a provincial matter was not only most spurious and untenable but also laughable.

"The government may have been saved from obvious embarrassment by the rejection of the resolution in the chamber but at a huge cost to the sense of fairness, image of impartiality and good sense of the Senate chairman," he added.

If the argument for rejection was accepted as valid then none of the incidents such as the murder of Maulana Shamzai, the assassination attempt on corps commander Karachi, the massacre in imambargahs in Quetta and Karachi, the killings in Gilgit and the deaths caused by contaminated water in Hyderabad should have been discussed in the Senate because they all were related to the provinces, Senator Babar said.

He said the resolution was killed in the chamber because the circulation of the accompanying picture of public humiliation of a woman in Lahore, the heart of Punjab, at the hands of security agencies would have brought a lasting shame to the government.