Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim led the procession of the treasury members whereas Leader of the Opposition Nisar Ahmad Khuhro led the opposition members of the assembly.
Participants of the CM-led procession who included the assembly speaker, ministers and advisers, ended their marched at the Karachi Press Club where they were addressed by the chief minister.
The opposition MPAs, including those from the MMA, marched up to the Governor’s house where they staged a brief sit-in and were addressed by Mr Khuhro.
Both the processions remained peaceful.
In his address, the Chief Minister Dr Arbab said that he and other members of the treasury benches had taken out the rally to express their resentment over the act of blasphemy by the European media. “We marched as a common man,” he added.
He regretted the opposition’s refusal to make it a joint rally, saying that it would have made a greater impact had it been joined by them. By choosing to take out separate procession, the opposition had proved that they wanted to get mileage out of the situation and turn the anti-blasphemy rallies into an anti-government campaign.
He declared that the people of Sindh, like those of the other parts of this country, were with the Ummah on the issue of Shan-i-Risalat, and this was the message being sent to the West through this march. “Even minorities are with us,” he said, and pointed at the minority MPAs present in the rally. He described the publication of sacrilegious sketches as an international conspiracy.
When his attention was drawn to the ban on such rallies in Punjab, he said that whatever happening in that province was the outlook of its government, but in Sindh, no action was being taken to prevent people from staging protests. He pointed out that scores of rallies were being held every day in different parts of Sindh.
Holding banners and raising slogans of Lathi Goli Ki Sarkar Naheen Chale Gee and “Friends of US and Musharraf are Traitors”, the opposition members deplored police action, arrests and detention resorted to by the government to suppress the anti-blasphemy rallies elsewhere in the country.
Mr Khuhro saluted the opposition leaders leading the campaign at national level, and pointed out that rallies were being staged in all big and small towns of the country to deplore the rulers in Islamabad who had virtually surrendered to the West.
Mr Khuhro said that the opposition had decided to march up to the Governor’s House as the governor was a federal representative and the opposition wanted to convey sentiments of the disturbed Muslim population of Sindh to the Centre. He said that the chief minister ended his procession at the press club because he did not matter so far as the demand of severing diplomatic relations with the offender countries was concerned.
PA PROCEEDINGS: The treasury and opposition benches attended the brief session of the Sindh Assembly which reassembled at 11:20am on Monday after the weekend break. Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah was in the chair.
Irrigation Minister Nadir Akmal Leghari called for adjourning the session to facilitate the scheduled protest rally by the MPAs.
Accordingly, the session was adjourned to Tuesday morning after 17-minute deliberations.
In the Friday session, the chief minister had invited the opposition members to join in the government-sponsored rally but the opposition leader did not agree, saying that the treasury benches were not accepting his call for extending the route of the march up to the Governor’s House.