Every political party has militant wings in Karachi

ISLAMABAD - A consensus view across the isle prevailed in the Senate on Monday that every political party had a militant wing in Karachi before the House adopted a resolution with the majority of vote recommending the government to take effective steps to deweaponise the city.When the House session started after a break of two days weekly off, PML-N, the major opposition party in the Upper House of the Parliament, and ANP, a coalition partner of the government, protested the laying of report of the Senate Law & Justice Committee on the Constitution (Twenty Second Amendment) Bill, 2012 regarding dual nationality of lawmakers. PPP lawmaker and Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Law & Justice, Kazim Khan laid the report before the House. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) staged a protest walkout from the House over the laying of the report on Constitution 22nd Amendment Bill, saying it was neither present on the agenda on a private members day (Monday), nor the committee had developed consensus on it. Syed Zafar Ali Shah said the original Constitution Amendment Bill presented before the House and referred to the committee had been withdrawn and now it at the eleventh hour recommended another amendment. He said his dissenting note given on the Amendment Bill had not been included in the report and termed the new Amendment Bill unconstitutional. Haji Adeel Ahmed of ANP also opposed the procedure of laying of report saying what was the emergency to present the report of the committee on a private members day when the rules did not allow such practice.The committee report recommending amendment in Article 63 of the Constitution says that a person, who is a citizen of Pakistan and is at the same time a citizen of any other state, may file the nomination to be elected as member of the Parliament, upon being returned and before taking oath as member of the Parliament, he shall renounce the citizenship or nationality of such state. The original Amendment Bill allowed those dual the nationals to become members of the Parliament who have acquired citizenship of a state other than Pakistan which the federal Government has dual nationality arrangement under the law.The House also adopted a unanimous resolution in connection with the murder of a journalist in Punjgor area of Balochistan after the journalists covering the parliamentary proceedings of Senate and National Assembly staged a protest walkout from the press galleries. The resolution also recommended to the government to take effective steps of the security of journalists and to announce compensation money for the journalists at par with the other persons who killed in the line of duty. National assembly also adopted a similar resolution separately.A number of lawmakers took part in the debate on the resolution regarding deweaponization of Karachi before the House adopted it with the majority of vote that was opposed only by one lawmaker of MQM, Syed Tahir Hussain Mashhadi. Senator Babar Ghauri taking part in the debate said that they were ready to sit with the ANP to attain peace in Karachi but they should avoid blame game and should not fight with each other on linguistic basis. He called for an end to criminal mafias, extortionist mafias, sectarianism and Talbanisation in Karachi. Even Azam Hoti of ANP during his speech shook hand with Babar Ghauri to sit together to find a solution of the Karachi in the presence of some guarantors He said that agreements including of August 2010 were intact and they only needed some guarantors to implement these. He underlined the previous operations launched during the past in Karachi proved futile exercise and urged the political solution of the issue saying army in a period of 10 years even could not deweaponise half of Karachi.However, criticism came from Hasil Khan Bazenjo and Mushahid Ullah Khan as both said PPP along with its coalition partners, both ANP and MQM, have ruled the country for around five years and now they were talking to sit together to solve the Karachi issue. Hasil Bazenjo said no political party in Karachi could do politics without a militant wing. Mushahid Hussain Syed also endorsed Bazenjo that all political parties there had militant wings or private armies and added that 8,500 people with illegal weapons were arrested in the city but all were got freed due to political interference. He termed the Karachi issue a political and man-made one urging the need for its political solution.

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