Opp gives tough time

Abrar Saeed and Mubashar Hassan ISLAMABAD/LAHORE - During in-camera briefing to joint session of the Parliament, the opposition lawmakers blew hot and cold and came up with cutting queries to the military leadership on security issues. Sources told TheNation that prior to the briefing Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Ch. Nisar Ali Khan on seeing the Defence Secretary and ISPR DG in the House agitated that they would not take briefing from them and the operational heads in the armed forces should come and brief the MPs. On that Defence Secretary quietly left the house At a point during the course of in-camera briefing when Leader of Opposition Ch. Nisar Ali Khan rose to his seat the PML-Q leaders started chanting slogans against him. Quickly responding to them, the N-League MPs also started shouting at them and for a moment the house turned into a fish market. Deputy Speaker National Assembly Faisal Karim Kundi took a few minutes to make MPs realize that they were engaged in highly sensitive matter pertaining to the national security. Chaudhry Nisar said: Since ISI has accepted the failure, now the responsibility should be fixed. He demanded that there has to be some kind of action for everything that went wrong. Deputy Speaker termed the question by former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi irrelevant when he asked that why initially the President of Pakistan and Prime Minister had welcomed the Abbottabad operation by US commandos and termed it a great victory in the war against terror. Tehmina Daultana of PML-N angrily said: You guys have destroyed the country and asked General Pasha to resign, but he did not respond to her accusations. Maulana Ata-ur-Rehman said that America was big boss of the Army and the ISI, and since the boss is angry now, the army wanted to seek shelter under the Parliament. He said there should be open debate on all issues today. He asked who raised Taliban and who funded them. The ISI DG got emotional and said, 'If you want everything to be discussed openly, then I will have to tell you that who had been receiving dollars from Saudi Arabia and Libya. Upon this, Maulana Ata-ur-Rehman got furious and led a walk out of all JUI-F Parliamentarians. Later, Syed Khurshid Shah and Rehman Malik brought them back. Dr. Abdul Malik, a Senator from Balochistan alleged that ISI was responsible for current disturbance in Balochistan. The DG ISI replied, 'If you people could control situation in the province, we will call back our people tomorrow from Balochistan. He further said that if Parliamentarians held him responsible from the mess in that province he was ready to resign. The Opposition and Treasury members, however, said 'no with one voice. In a very emotional tone, the DG ISI said that certain politicians were subjecting ISI to criticism on behest of foreign powers which was tantamount to harming the country. 'We will not tolerate any criticism without any proof, he affirmed. He said incidents of security lapse also took place in US and UK, but no one criticised their security agencies there. Asked when was it that Osama turned against Pakistan, the ISI DG said it happened after US attack on Tora Bora. When asked as to how Osama managed to enter Pakistan, he said situation in Pakistan was such that anybody could enter Pakistan. He also confirmed presence of pro-Osama network in Pakistan, assuring that the matter was being investigated. Replying to another question, General Pasha told legislators that when he visited America for one day, he had a quarrel with CIA chief. 'I refused to oblige him and told him in explicit terms that he was working under President Zardari and PM Gilani and not under President Obama. To another question, he informed Parliamentarians that CIA gave 10,000 dollars to its informers while ISI was not in a position to pay even Rs 10. He also brought on record that many Americans were issued visas without clearance from the ISI. The Opposition members shouted the slogan of 'shame, shame after this revelation by ISI chief. He also told them that many Americans had entered Pakistan and it was difficult to watch their activities.

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