ISLAMABAD, Oct 12: Opposition parties staged a noisy protest and a walkout in the National Assembly on Tuesday to mark the fifth anniversary of the army coup that had brought President General Pervez Musharraf to power, calling it a 'black day' and a 'day of mourning'.
In the day's second sitting, opposition members interrupted a debate on their own adjournment motions about the law and order situation in the country to start a discussion on the military take over that had taken place about the same time five years ago.
"Go Musharraf go," they shouted after Deputy Speaker Sardar Mohammad Yaqub refused to allow the debate. They stormed out of the house in a brief token walkout only to return soon to resume the law and order debate.
The debate had begun in the afternoon on 19 adjournment motions tabled by opposition members on the recent bomb and gun attacks in Sialkot, Multan and Karachi and the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers in the NWFP by militants.
But opposition members used the remainder of the debate to focus on the 1999 coup that had toppled then prime minister Nawaz Sharif hours after he had announced the sacking of Gen Musharraf as Chief of the Army Staff while the general was flying home after a visit to Sri Lanka.
Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao could not deliver a planned speech to round off the debate as the chair declined to extend the discussion for as long as the opposition wanted and instead adjourned the house until 6pm on Wednesday.
The deputy speaker agreed to extend the debate for half an hour after the expiry of two hours set by Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain during the morning sitting. But the opposition parties said that time was not enough for 19 adjournment motions.
As the house resumed proceedings at 6.10pm after a break for maghreb prayers, Khwaja Saad Rafiq of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz said it was almost at this time five years ago that Gen Musharraf had seized power and democracy was toppled. He asked for allowing a discussion to recall the event.
It was at 5pm on Oct 12, 1999 that a Kashmiri language news bulletin of PTV announced Gen Musharraf's sacking as army chief by Gen Ziauddin Butt. As the army moved to block the change that news was missing from the 6pm English language bulletin.
But it was inserted at the end of bulletin before the PTV went off air after troops took control of its headquarters in Islamabad. "We want to protest," said Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah of the People's Party Parliamentarians, adding there would have been democracy and peace in the country if there had been no Oct 12 'black day'.
"This (occasion) calls for a big protest," Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed said before the opposition members walked out of the house chanting "go Musharraf go".
They directed some of their ire to Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Niazi when he stood up to ridicule the opposition parties for protesting against an event that he said they had celebrated by distributing sweetmeats on the coup day.
"Go lota go," they chanted, in a reference to Mr Afgan's defection to the ruling coalition after winning his assembly seat on the PPP ticket in the 2002 elections. Mr Afgan questioned the justification for opposition parties to cry for democracy after contesting the 2002 elections under President Musharraf's Legal Framework Order.
He particularly asked the PML-N to apologize before the nation for what he called false cases instituted by its prime minister Nawaz Sharif against PPP leader and former premier Benazir Bhutto.
MMA member Hafiz Hussain Ahmed said while the assembly would usually adjourn for the day to mourn the death of any of its members, an adjournment was all the more called for to mourn what he called the 'murder the whole parliament' by the 1999 coup. Earlier, several opposition members accused the government of failing to maintain peace in the country.