ISLAMABAD  -   Only a day after the Senate witnessed a rumpus over the government alleged corruption charges against the opposition parties, Chairman Senate Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani Thursday conditionally barred Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry from attending the remaining sittings of the ongoing session of the Upper House.

“After other day’s incident, I have come to the conclusion that the information minister should apologise to the Upper House (over his behaviour) and if he did not apologise, I bar him for attending the remaining sittings of the ongoing session under the rules,” the chairman said.

The chair’s ruling came soon after the house resumed following its suspension for 30 minutes due to lack of quorum and opposition’s walkout from the house against the “irresponsible” behaviour of the information minister. The chair got widely applause from the opposition benches over his ruling what they said that the chair has set the direction of the house. They added that chairman has set a good tradition for the house.

The chair ruled that Upper House, also the House of Federation, has excellent traditions and will continue with these values but a bad taste has been created in the house for the past sometime. He added: “We should all avoid such behaviours.” He said that “more responsibility lied upon the government to run the affairs of house smoothly but it was binding on both sides of the isle to respect the Leader of House, the Leader of Opposition and the chair.”

In the past sometime, the information minister and opposition members have been trading barbs in the Senate for the number of times over the former levelling allegations of corruption against them and later forcing the latter demanding an apology from him.

After the Senate session began on Thursday, Opposition Leader Raja Zafarul Haq reiterated his demand of an apology from the information minister and said that there was a lot of bitterness in the house and it was affecting the house’s pride. He said that it was an earlier agreement in the house that the minister would apologise to the house over his earlier remarks made in the house and the opposition has no option other than walkout as he has not done this.

Senator Hasil Bizenjo asserted that until the minister comes here and tender an apology, the opposition will not attend the sitting. PPP Senator Sherry Rehman said if the information minister thinks he can insult the position of chair then “we will not tolerate this and we will boycott the session”. She said that minister cannot talk like this. She also demanded that either Chaudhry should apologise to the house or “opposition will run the house outside the parliament”.

However, Leader of the House Shibli Faraz suggested that a committee should analyse the statements of Chaudhry and parliamentary leader of PML-N in the house Senator Mushahidullah Khan made against each other for a number of times. He offered an apology on behalf of minister.

After this, the opposition staged a walkout and the chair had to suspend the sitting for 30 minutes due to lack of quorum.

Opposition rejects report of government over SP’s killing:

The opposition benches rejected policy statement of the government over the killing of superintendent of police (SP) Tahir Khan Dawar in Afghanistan. The opposition strongly rejected the policy statement given by State Minister of Interior Shehryar Khan Afridi for his remarks that the dysfunctional Safe City cameras of Islamabad were the main cause that SP was abducted from Islamabad and moved to Afghanistan.

“The incident raises question on the performance of police and on state and on all of us,” Afridi said. He said that some people from Afghanistan side wanted destabilisation in Pakistan. After the abduction of SP Dawar from Islamabad on October 26, he was kept in Punjab for one or two days and then shifted to Afghanistan while using the route through District Mianwali,” he said. He said that there was no patrolling on the border from Afghanistan side. He went on to say that even a single camera out of more than 1,800 cameras of Safe City Project Islamabad was not able to identify any face or vehicle and 600 cameras were dysfunctional out of these. “I request the Upper House to hold an inquiry on the issues arising out of Safe City Project so that all responsible ones could be penalized,” he said. On this, the chair remarked that it was the duty of interior minister to hold an inquiry. The minister answered that the ministry will hold an inquiry but then nobody should say that a political victimisation was being made. He said that the culprits involved in the killing would be made example.

After the speech of state minister, the opposition parties strongly came down hard on the state minister and said that it was inappropriate to hold response the dysfunctional cameras of the incident. The lawmakers said that the incident was complete negligence and failure on part of the law enforcement agencies and the state institutions. They said if a police officer was not safe in the capital then how common citizens could be safe. They said that the incident had demoralised the entire police and demanded that the martyred police officer should be awarded highest medal of the country. They termed it a dangerous trend and said that such incident could also happen with the politicians.

“The statement of the state minister has made joke of the house… I reject this non-serious report,” said PPP Senator Sherry Rehman and added that Prime Minister Imran Khan, being having the portfolio of interior minister, should himself present the report in the house. He stressed that Foreign Office should not keep silence on the killing and ask from Afghanistan how its territory was used for this. She also sought report from the Foreign Office on this.

JI Senator Mushtaq Ahmed questioned how an SP rank officer was kidnapped from Islamabad and killed in Afghanistan and added that the incident raised serious security questions.

“If some incident of kidnapping occurs where there are no security cameras then who will be responsible,” said PKMAP Senator Usman Kakar. He said that a campaign was being run against the officer for his links with Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) and the killing raised many doubts. ANP lawmaker Sitara Ayaz said that the killing was being connected with PTM. PML-N Senator Javed Abbasi said that the minister should have told about the culprits involved in this incident. He said that the government had no information till the news of his killing went viral on social media.

PML-N legislator Mushahidullah Khan in his remarks said that the government should not stifle the media as a number of journalists were being made unemployed by the media owner in the name of financial constraints. He said that stifling of media would affect democracy badly.

House passes resolution for Dr Aafia Siddiqui:

The house unanimously passed a resolution demanding that there is a dire need to take up the matter of repatriation of imprisoned Dr Aafia Siddiqui to Pakistan with US again. “The house strongly recommends to the Government to take concrete steps for repatriation of Dr Aafia at the earliest,” said the resolution moved by Senator Talha Mahmood. The chair told the Senate Secretariat to send the resolution to FO with the direction that it should take all necessary to implement it.