KARACHI, March 2: The Opposition blunted the moves of some treasury bench members on Friday by demonstrating restraint in the Sindh Assembly to draw them into a shouting match or trap them in some sort of rumpus for drawing the attention of the chair. They also ignored the violation of the rules by treasury members and restricted themselves only to register their protest in an orderly manner so that they were not blamed of foiling their own requisitioned session.
Chairman Iqbal Quaderi, who was presiding over the session as a member of the panel of chairmen after Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah had left the house, gave the floor to Rafique Engineer of PPP to move his privilege motion, but Hameedullah advocate of MMA sprang up from his seat and started speaking on a point of order.
He criticised the government for its action against a publication, Daily Islam, harassment of its hawkers, curtailing the advertisements of some newspapers including Aghaz and Financial times. He also requested to review the government’s policy which was against freedom of the Press.
Although the chair ruled it out of order saying that it was not a point of order, the mines and minerals minister Irfanullah Marwat rising from his seat ignored the ruling. He a made a long statement mentioning that the government did not ban any newspaper without any justification. Justifying the action against the newspapers he referred to the murder of Punjab minister Zile Huma Usman during an open Katchery in the city and condemned it. He also picked on the PPP and said the party leadership in an attempt to keep its members from leaving the party were creating false hopes among them by claiming the party was coming into power. “We have completed four years in office and will complete the fifth year before going to polls.” He said the recently held by-elections had opened the Peoples Party’s eyes. He said the coming elections would be fair and again the opposition would have no chance of forming the government.
He also referred to the Charter of Democracy signed by members of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy and said it was buried and they would offer fateha for it.
Rafique Engineer and other opposition members tried to interrupt Mr Marwat’s speech by drawing the chair’s attention to what they said was Mr Marwat’s diatribe against the party. The opposition was beginning to settle down when minister Dr Saeeda Malik rising from her seat sought permission to move her motion for suspending the relevant rules under 211 and allow her to move a resolution. Without going through the rules, in her motion she also mentioned to suspend the Rule 102, which in fact was the right to move the resolution.
On this many members from both sides of the house rose from their seats. From the treasury, ministers Irfan Marwat, Iftikhar Chaudhry, Qamar Mansoor, Dr Saeeda Malik, members Farhad Jatoi, Afshan Imran and others while from the opposition Rafique Engineer, Maulana Omar Sadiq, Shazia Marri, Humera Alwani, Makhdoom Jameel-uz-Zaman, Sharfunnisa Leghari and others rose to protest.
However, the chair ignoring the silent protest from opposition benches, mostly women members and the voiceferous protest of Rafique Engineer to draw attention to the anomaly, was put to voice vote and adopted.
The resolution was read out: “This assembly condemns the dastardly fatal attack on minister social welfare Mrs Zill-e-Huma Usman and also demands that the culprit Molvi Sarwar, the serial killer, be punished according to law.” The signatory to the resolution were Afshan Imran, Heer Sohu, Naila Inam, Rehana Nasreen, Bano Saghir, Dr Sajeela Leghari, Begum Gulzar Unnar and others besides Dr Saeeda Malik.
After adoption of the resolution the chair called it a day at noon to meet again on Monday.
Some members from the opposition benches including Shazia Marri tried to draw the chair’s attention towards the resolution which they wanted to move on the same subject. The law minister made an offer to sign the resolution as moved by from treasury benches, but the opposition declined and the resolution was adopted by voice vote.
During questions hour, which started around 10.45 am, the culture sinister said in response to Sassui Palejo’s question, Umerkot Fort, Mohenjo Daro and Ranikot were all heritage sites and needed preservation and protection but they did not fall in the provincial government’s domain and were under the federal government.
The Minister said he had heard that many antiques, which used to be on display in the museums of Sindh, were missing and could now be seen in the houses of influential people. He requested the federal government to investigate the allegation and provide a list what antiques went missing from 1971 to 2006 and where they had gone.
He said the Sindh government had written to the federal government four months ago to transfer all historical sites to the provincial government. Humera Alwani, Sharfun Nisa, Jameel-uz-zaman, Anwar Mehar, Naila Inam urged the provincial government to preserve heritage sites.
Earlier, with Speaker Shah in the chair, the House was called in order around 10.20am. After recitation from the Holy Quran and Naat, the house offered Fateha for the victims of Samjhota Express and for slain Punjab minister Zile Huma Usman. The Speaker nominated Iqbal Quaderi, Farhad Jatoi, Jalal Shah Jamote and Dr Sikander Mandro as members of panel of chairmen to presided over the session in absence of the speaker and deputy speaker.