The Sindh Assembly session on Thursday ended in a fiasco as members from the opposition and the treasury benches exchanged hot words with each other and showed complete disrespect to the request of the chair to maintain decorum in the House.
The session scheduled at 9:30 am began at 11:15 am with Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah in the chair. It was only after about one hour the session was adjourned at 12:15 pm.
After recitation from the Holy Quran members offered prayers for the victims of US bombing on a mosque in Fullujah, Baghdad, on Wednesday in which more than 40 people were killed, 53 people killed in Lyari during March and April and other who had lost their lives in acts of terrorism.
At the beginning of the session the speaker made it clear that he would not permit any point of order as the members had made it their habit to come and then seek permission to raise point of orders.
He said that they should maintain punctuality if they wanted their point of orders to be heard.
Before the speaker finished his sermon to the members, the leader of the opposition, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, sought his permission to table an adjournment motion under Rule 211 sub-rule 72 in regard to the National Finance Commission Award.
The speaker said that as the adjournment motion regarding Abdullah Murad's assassination was still being discussed and till such time it had been disposed of, no other adjournment motion could be taken.
He asked the Law Minister Ch Iftikhar Ahmed to give his views.
The law minister said that under Rule 74 no adjournment motion could be taken up during the pendency of other adjournment motions.
Syed Qaim Ali Shah was of the view that Rule 74 provides one adjournment motion at one time each day.
Though the discussion on the freshly taken up adjournment motion during the pendency of another adjournment motion under discussion could not be initiated but admitting it for discussion was not restricted by Rule 74.
The speaker in his ruling outrightly rejected the idea of accepting any adjournment motion till such time adjournment motion on Abdullah Murad assassination had been completed.
Speaker resumed discussion on the Abdullah Murad issue and gave the floor to PPP MPA Fariah Razzak Haroon.
She said that a serious issue was being discussed in the House where police, home department and the provincial administration were under serious criticism, no representative of the concerned department was in the House.
She said that the speaker should bound the IGP, home secretary and others to attend the proceedings and listen what opinion the members carried.
The speaker asked the secretary of the Assembly to issue instructions to the concerned department to depute their representatives.
Haroon said that it was great injustice and gross violation of human rights that the family members were being denied the right to register FIR and name the suspects.
She said that the government should depict the correct picture of the law and order situation in Sindh.
Rafiq Engineer of the PPP condemned the assassination of Abdullah Murad and questioned the reasons not permitting Murad's family to register FIR.
He said despite a lapse of five weeks no headway had been made in the investigation of the case.
While Fariha Razzak Haroon was still on her legs Speaker Shah retired to his chamber and Mohammed Hussain chaired the rest of the session which lasted only for about 15 minutes.
Zahid Bhurgari in his speech condemned the assassination of Murad Baloch and asked the government to permit his family of the deceased leader to register FIR and name the culprits.
While he was speaking the members of the opposition tried to press for some other points and Farheen Moughal used harsh words for the treasury benches.
This fuelled the fire. Muhammed Hussain tried to bring the House in order.
He asked the law minister to control members of the treasury benches and the leader of the opposition to control his members.
The opposition members left their seats and staged a sort of gherao of the Speaker's podium and the desk of his staff.
They chanted slogans against the government, members of the treasury and Mohammed Hussain.
Finding no way out, the chair adjourned the session to meet again at 9:30 am.
Later, talking to press Muhammed Hussain explained his position and asked the opposition to conduct the proceedings in a decent manner.
He said that the session had been requisitioned by the opposition and they should try to take full advantage of the occasion.
He said that the murder of Adullah Murad was a serious matter whereas the opposition had taken it in a casual manner. "They were expected to conduct themselves in a sober manner," he added.
He said that it was high time to decide whether the session should continue or prorogue.
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