ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser has regretted the manhandling of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders by activists of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) on Saturday outside the Parliament House and said the incident will be thoroughly probed.

In a statement issued by the National Assembly Secretariat on Sunday, Mr Qaiser said such incidents were “regrettable and condemnable”.

The speaker stressed the need for adopting a culture of tolerance and patience in politics and urged the political leadership to play their role in this regard. He said that all the parliamentarians were public representatives and every one must respect them.

There is no mention in the statement whether the speaker will hold the investigation through a parliamentary committee, the interior ministry or some other institution.

It may be recalled that a number of senior PML-N leaders, including former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Musadiq Malik, Marriyum Aurangzeb and Ahsan Iqbal, were humiliated and besieged by the PTI workers who had gathered at D-Chowk to protest against the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and expressed solidarity with Prime Minister Imran Khan when he was getting a vote of confidence in the National Assembly. At one point of time, the PML-N leaders also had a scuffle with some of the PTI workers before police came into action.

The PML-N has not only condemned the incident, but also threatened that in future they would respond to such happenings with more power and force.

Earlier, the speaker had already taken notice of such incidents on the floor of the National Assembly and had even issued letters to four MNAs seeking an explanation, but there has been no further progress on it.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2021