News
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
Karachi violence echoes in National Assembly
* MQM stages walkout on second consecutive day
* PM Gilani rejects perception that senior leadership is fomenting divide in city
By Tanveer Ahmed
ISLAMABAD: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) legislators staged a walkout from the National Assembly on the second consecutive day on Tuesday to protest deteriorating law and order situation in Karachi.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, however, rejected the perception that the senior leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had anything to do to with the division of the city on ethnic lines.
The house also reverberated with calls from various corners to accept all the political stakeholders of the city, including MQM-Haqiqi, which has been pushed to wall. A Karachi-based PPP lawmaker, Abdul Qadir Patel, irked the MQM lawmakers when he said that the Haqiqi group should be allowed to play its political role in the city.
“It is completely wrong to bracket senior PPP leadership with such false perceptions,” Gilnai emphatically said in response to allegations by the MQM legislators that the PPP-led Sindh government was involved in the fresh spate of violence in the city.
Gilani said that he had great respect for immigrants because his forefathers too migrated from Baghdad to settle in this part of the world and pointed out that a majority of voters in his constituency was comprised of immigrants.
Earlier, the session witnessed some unruly scenes when Khursheed Shah tried to avoid the discussion on Karachi by arguing that being a private members day, the house could not take up the agenda of the last day when a motion was moved to debate the issue by suspending the rules.
However, the MQM joined the House when the PML-N lawmakers pacified them and brought them to the session, which later saw fiery speeches and finger pointing against each other mainly by the MQM and the PPP lawmakers.
Patel called for giving the social and political rights to all the parties having presence in the city. In a veiled reference to Muttahida, Patel felt that unless the Haqiqi group is accepted as a political reality, it would be difficult to maintain law and order in Karachi.
“If Muttahida claims of having lost the highest number of workers in violence then Haqiqi stands second in losing their workers,” Patel pointed out and said that it would be to the betterment of the city to accept all the political realties of the city, including Haqiqi.
Patel believed that division of Karachi into five districts would ensure political and social rights to all the ethnic groups based in Karachi and called it unacceptable for a party to rule the entire Karachi by sitting in the city district government office.
MQM’ Haider Abbas Rizvi, in a charged and emotional way, questioned that why the law enforcement agencies were not acting to curb violence in the city. He said that now the isolated incidents of target killing had ended, as dozens of people were being killed everyday.
He called for dispelling the impression that ethnic and sectarianism was being fomented in the city, which he said was being attributed to some ministers of the provincial government.
Rizvi warned that the violence in the city would not hurt the MQM only but the PPP would also not be saved from it.
PML-N Khawaja Saad Rafiq targeted the government for its failure to maintain peace in Karachi and suggested that a special parliamentary committee be constituted to look into the incidents of violence in Karachi and Quetta.
Aftab Khan Sherpao also emphasised for a parliamentary committee on the Karachi issue and opposed the proposal to call the army for ensuring law and order situation.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk