PPP lawmakers on Monday took their protest against Speaker Sindh Assembly Agha Siraj Durrani's arrest to the upper house of the parliament, with Senator Sherry Rehman saying that the National Accountability Bureau's (NAB) detention of a serving speaker is "desecration of the Sindh Assembly".

NAB had last week arrested Durrani from a hotel in Islamabad over allegations of embezzlement and accumulating assets beyond his known sources of income.

Rehman, in her speech on the floor of the house today, said that "a message was being sent to Sindh with Durrani's arrest, but she also dismissed allegations that the PPP is playing the "Sindh card" over the issue. "Sindh is not some card that can be played," she said.

Following Durrani's arrest, senior PPP leaders, including members of the provincial cabinet, had staged a sit-in outside the Durrani residence in protest over not allowing female ministers Azra Pechuho and Syeda Shehla Raza to meet the speaker's family while a raid by a NAB team was in progress.

The house had been surrounded by Rangers personnel while NAB officials carried out a search and took photographs.

Rehman told the house today that Durrani's house had been entered into without the permission of a magistrate, and asked what documents NAB officials were looking for when they had already made the arrest.

"The whole cabinet was sitting outside the speakers' house," she said, adding: "No one will forget that night of cruelty."

"'Is this the state of Madina?" Rehman said, referring to Prime Minister Imran Khan's vision to run his government on the basis of the principles followed during Prophet Mohammad's (PBUH) era.

The senator questioned whether Durrani's interrogation had not been possible without his arrest or if he had been "running somewhere" which necessitated his arrest.

Read more: CM Shah slams 'behaviour' of NAB officials with Agha Siraj Durrani's family

"[Remember that] Asif Ali Zardari raised the slogan of 'Pakistan khapay' [We want Pakistan]," she remarked. "[But] we are rebellious [too]; we are from the Peoples Party," Rehman remarked.

During the proceedings, Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani told Senator Kauda Babar to take his seat when he wanted to speak, adding that parliamentary leaders would speak first. Later, when Sanjrani invited former Senate chairman Mian Raza Rabbani to speak, Babar objected as he reminded the incumbent chairman that Rabbani was not a parliamentary leader.

Other senators, including Rehman, protested at Babar's remarks, and told him that Rabbani is a former chairman of the House.

Rabbani, meanwhile, in protest, walked out from the building. He was then convinced by Leader of the House, Shibli Faraz, to return. Upon his return to the Senate, Rabbani also talked about Durrani's arrest.

He noted that the role of the speaker was important in any house and that it was a constitutional position. "Article 7 defines the state. If you witness the respect given to the speaker anywhere in the world, you will learn about their prestige," Rabbani remarked.

The PPP stalwart said that NAB's arrest of the speaker of the Sindh Assembly was akin to an attack on the state. "Those who are playing this abhorrent game should take a lesson from history," Rabbani said, adding that if the parliament were to be weakened, history would forgive no one.

Rabbani said that the process of accountability should not be stopped, but there should have some respect for certain positions.

"The actual purpose wasn't to end corruption. Rather, it seems that the state is using corruption [for its own ends]," he alleged.

Meanwhile, Faraz, the leader of the house, asked how the House could function when, whichever party's members are picked up by NAB, come to the Senate to protest. "It is my full effort that the business of the house continues," he said.