ISLAMABAD, Dec 5: Two key opposition members — PPP’s Raza Rabbani and ANP’s Zahid Khan — informed the Senate on Thursday that they had received handwritten anonymous letters threatening them for their stance on the trial of former dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf under Article 6.

Chairman Nayyar Bokhari expressed concern over the incident and directed Leader of the House Raja Zafarul Haq to take up the matter with the prime minister and report progress to the house by Dec 11.

The issue dominated the otherwise dull proceedings of the house which continued its debate on the price-hike.

The letters’ issue had initially been raised by Leader of Opposition Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan while speaking on a point of order soon after the question hour. Later, Mr Rabbani and Mr Khan informed the house about the contents of letters.

Mr Rabbani, the parliamentary leader of People’s Party, told the house that over the past 10 days he had received two letters which were “full of filthy abuses” and contained threats for his speeches in favour of Gen Musharraf’s trial. He said the language used in the letters was so vulgar that it could not be shared with any sane and civilised person.

“I have been told through the letters that my stance on Gen Musharraf’s trial under Article 6 is not correct,” he said, adding “the threats range from assassination, kidnapping and slitting of throat.”

Mr Rabbani said he had ignored the first letter which he had received 10 days back, but he brought it to the notice of his party colleagues when he and Zahid Khan received similar letters on Thursday in the same envelope.

He said that in one of the letters received on Thursday the unknown person had also mentioned Finance Minister Ishaq Dar saying all these three persons would soon face “consequences” for their speeches.

Senator Khan said he could not be scared through such tactics and that he would continue to demand that Gen Musharraf should be tried under Article 6. He said ANP believes that Pakistan can only be run through democracy and that all the dictators, be it Yahya Khan, Gen Zia or Gen Musharraf, had destroyed the country.

“We will continue to talk about Article 6. We are not scared. We only request the government to expedite the process of Musharraf’s trial under Article 6,” he said.

Both senators said they did not need any security as they had a firm belief that Allah had already set the time of death of every person.

Responding to the opposition’s concerns, Leader of the House and PML-N chairman Raja Zafarul Haq called the incident a “serious matter”. He asked Mr Rabbani and Mr Khan to provide him copies of the letters and said he would request Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to hold an inquiry through such an agency or officials who could not be influenced. “There should be an immediate action on it. The person or the institution behind these letters must be identified,” he said.