ISLAMABAD, May 4: The parliamentary opposition on Friday cried against what it called detention of thousands of activists in the Punjab province in a crackdown directed at suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry’s plans to drive from Islamabad to Lahore on Saturday.
There was no immediate government response to the charge made in the National Assembly before the treasury benches, in an apparent streak of Talibanisation, made use of a Quranic verse to hurriedly wind up the day’s proceedings --- for a two-day weekend recess --- after the muezzin had called for Friday prayers.
The government has made it known it would like the chief justice to fly to Lahore rather than drive about 300km on the Grand Trunk Road for a scheduled address to the bar agitating for his restoration.
“Not only thousands of our workers have been detained, police were using ladders to climb into their houses and thus violating the sanctity (of homes),” Raja Pervez Ashraf, secretary-general of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), said while interrupting the house proceedings.
Similar charges were made by Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) alliance’s deputy parliamentary leader Liaqat Baloch, who told a news conference outside the chamber that more than 4,000 opposition activists had been detained by police stations along the G.T. Road through which the chief justice’s motorcade will pass and make several stopovers to speak to lawyers and other people who might assemble to greet him.
Mr Ashraf said lakhs of people would come to greet Justice Chaudhry despite the restrictions on freedom of movement and turn “the whole G.T. Road into jalsagah (meeting place)”.
Both the PPP and MMA leaders warned the Punjab provincial government, which is reported to have imposed a ban on gatherings of more than four people at all towns along the G.T. Road under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, that it would be responsible for the consequences of any obstructions caused for the chief justice’s reception.
Mr Ashraf’s interruption and similar actions by other members through points of order provoked a protest from a ruling party member, M.P. Bhandara, who said the house was wasting time on invalid points of order (he put them at 465 in the last session) and ignoring its primary task of legislation. “This assembly is totally out of control.”
“We are not legislating, we are shouting,” he said in anger before leaving the house, which saw more members airing their grievances through points of order, including a PPP member from Punjab, Ghulam Murtaza Satti, complaining that some retired colonels appointed as local investigation officers of the National Accountability Bureau were using their powers to settle personal vendettas, and an MMA member from the North West Frontier Province, Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali, walking out to protest at what he called a new government policy not to release funds for development schemes proposed by opposition MNAs and instead implementing those of non-elected favourites.
However, the MMA appeared in relative peace with the government as Maulana Chitrali and another alliance member, Mian Mohammad Aslam from Islamabad, withdrew their privilege motions filed over recent events relating to opposition protests against the suspension of the chief justice and a presidential reference filed against him on the disputed charge of misconduct.
Maulana Chitrali did not press his motion against the police action in stopping him from going to his flat in the Parliamentary Lodges in Islamabad on May 2 after Minister of State for Interior Zafar Iqbal Warraich said the action was taken only to protect the member from stone-throwing at the time by demonstrators.
Mian Aslam followed suit after Mr Warraich advised him to better go to court as orders for his preventive detention twice last month were issued by a local magistrate and were legally correct.
But while some more opposition members sought to speak, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi grabbed at a suggestion of a pro-MMA member from the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas, Maulana Abdul Malik, that house proceedings should stop after muezzin calls for Friday prayers in light of a verse in the holy Quran’s sura (chapter) Al-Jumua (Friday) that tells believers that “when you are summoned to Friday prayers, hasten to the remembrance of Allah and cease your trading”.
“This is a Quranic commandment ... and a deviation from it even for a second will be an insult to the Quran and a crime (in an Islamic country),” the minister said, forcing then-presiding officer Zaheer Khokhar, who deputised for Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain, to immediately adjourn the house until 5pm on Monday.
The immediate compliance to this interpretation of the Quranic verse was in contrast to usual practice followed by both the National Assembly and the Senate in the past to adjourn to allow sufficient time to members to attend a prayer congregation rather than immediately after the first of the two Azans called for Friday prayers.