ISLAMABAD, May 15: Friday’s marathon in-camera session of the parliament was killing for the participants in different ways, Dawn learnt on Sunday.

Army chief Gen Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani had to satisfy his craving for cigarettes with an unfamiliar brand, and his hunger with biscuits rummaged through an officer’s desk, according to some in the parliament’s staff.

They said on arriving at the Parliament House, COAS Gen Kayani, Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Rao Qamar Suleyman, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Noman Bashir and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Gen Khalid Shamim Wynne were taken to the NA speaker’s chamber. At the start of the session, the prime minister presented a resolution for adoption. It was reportedly prepared by the Foreign Office and was rejected by the legislators. After this, the three services chiefs were called into the NA hall and they sat in the senators’ box and witnessed the proceedings of the joint sitting.

The nearly 12-hour-long joint sitting of the two houses that followed reportedly proved a test of nerves for not only the legislators but also the top brass of the military who faced heated questions about the presence of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad and the 40-minute-long US special forces’ incursion on May 2 to kill him.

“Nobody knew that the session that started at 3pm will stretch for almost 12 hours till 2:30am and so no arrangements were made to cater to the culinary needs of the big assembly,” said a senior official of the secretariat, Mehboob Gurmani.

Only limited quantity of food was available in the cafeteria of the secretariat on cash payment and individuals finished the entire stock within an hour or so. Most of the parliamentarians and other participants of the joint sitting remained hungry.

The doors of the parliament house were closed for everyone till the end of the session and all irrelevant staff of the two houses had left the building before the start of the joint sitting’s proceedings.

The sources said Gen Kayani and other military officials, who had already faced strong criticism during the session, did not want to violate the Standard Operating Procedure of the in-camera joint sitting of the parliament by calling their juniors from outside to provide them anything. However, it were the politicians who breached the SOP by coming out and providing details of the in-camera session to the media.

When a joint resolution was being prepared and the house was opened for speeches, the COAS asked the head of the NAS’s media cell, Anjum Mughal, for some food. But the host felt embarrassed as the food had already been eaten up by the participants of the joint sitting.

“The official of the NAS arranged some biscuits from the office of the speaker’s secretary and served it to Gen Kayani and his colleagues.

As Gen Kayani smokes a lot, the sources said, he went to the corridors of the parliament house many times during the session for smoking and finally finished all the available quota of his favourite brand.

Later, the COAS could not find the brand of cigarettes he smokes as no one was allowed to take anything inside the parliament house like cellphones and cigarette packs due to strict security reasons.

“On that situation, Capstan cigarettes were taken from the security guards standing on the gates and served to Gen Kayani which he smoked after having some biscuits,” the sources said.

SPEAKER GRILLS PML-Q LEADER: The sources said National Assembly Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi, who presided over the session, took strong notice of what he called ‘violation of the in-camera briefing’ by Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) leader Riaz Fatyana by going outside the house and providing details of the in-camera session to the media.

During the session, the gates were opened for those who wanted to leave the building but not for those who wanted to enter it.

Mr Fatyana was the first person who breached the sanctity of the in-camera proceedings of the joint sitting. Sources close to the deputy speaker said he asked Mr Fatyana that he had violated the SOP only to come in the headlines.

Mr Fatyana, who had left the parliament building for going home, wanted to come back but was stopped by the security guards. He waited at the gate for more than 55 minutes before managing to enter the building again.

The chief of his own faction of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, also left the building quite earlier for going to Peshawar but he did not talk to anyone.