ISLAMABAD, June 1: The government is likely to confront opposition protests over deteriorating law and order situation in the country when the National Assembly begins its budget session on Thursday.

The opposition groups of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) have filed adjournment motions with the lower house’s secretariat seeking immediate debates on the Friday’s bomb blast at the Bari Imam shrine and violence in Karachi, opposition sources said on Wednesday.

They said that parliamentary groups of the opposition alliances would meet before the session due at 5pm. The sources said that it would be hard for the ruling coalition or Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain to delay a debate on the law and order situation while the capital was still reeling from the bomb attack at the shrine.

It would be too soon for the government to face another such debate after coming under severe criticism in the Senate. An adjournment motion signed by several ARD members and sent to the assembly’s secretariat said the Bari Imam bombing and the Karachi violence were “the worst example of law and order situation in the country in spite of tall claims of the government that terrorists have been smashed”.